
Westminster Abbey 



ALLYN AND BACON'S SERIES OF SCHOOL HISTORIES 

A 

SHORT HISTORY OF 
ENGLAND 

EEVISED EDITION 
BY 



CHARLES M. ANDREWS 



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ALLYN AND BACON 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 

ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 

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ALLYN AND BACON'S SERIES OF 

SCHOOL HISTORIES 

12mo, cloth, numerous maps, plans, and illustrations 



EARLY PROGRESS. By Willis M. West. 

MODERN PROGRESS. By Willis M. West. 

HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. By Willis M. West. 

HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Charles M. Andrews. 

SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Charles M. Andrews. 

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. By John HoUaday 
Latane. 



COPYRIGHT, 1912 AND 1921, BY 
CHARLES M. ANDREWS 



SEP 24 21 



J. S. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



0)r,!.A622982 



577] CONQUEST OF THE INTERIOE. 11 

Horsa. Then tradition lias it, and the tradition is probably 
genuine, that these Jutish chiefs and their followers, landing 
on the island of Thanet, quarrelled with those who had in- 
vited them to come, and seized the region later called Kent. 
Thus began the conquest. 

15. The Anglo-Saxon Conquest. — Following the Jutes came 
the Saxons, who were to be the true founders of England. 
Landing on the southern shore, in 477, according to the Anglo- 
Saxon Chronicle (p. 34), they carved out a kingdom of their 
own ; and during the following twenty years groups of in- 
dependent Saxons fought against the Britons of the southwest, 
and won the region about the old Roman city Venta, the 
modern Winchester. In the meantime, and afterward also, 
came the Angles, who by 526 had occupied the east coast, 
forming eventually the north folk and south folk, in East 
Anglia. Others of the Angles gained a foothold farther north, 
and in 547 founded the kingdom of Bernicia, and in 588 that 
of Deira, covering the coast from The Wash to the Firth of 
Forth. Thus, before the close of the sixth century, the Teu- 
tonic tribes were in possession of the coast of Britain from the 
Firth of Forth to the Isle of Wight, and were ready to push 
their conquests into the interior of the island. 

16. Conquest of the Interior. — To the newcomers from the 
densely wooded shores of the North Sea, Britain seemed a 
land of great fertility. It is little wonder that they soon ad- 
vanced to complete the conquest. Leaving the coast, they 
followed the river valleys and open places, and occupied the 
land between fen and forest, wood and dike. The resistance 
of the Britons was desperate,^ the conflict lasting a century and 
a half. In the beginning of the struggle the Britons were dis- 
tributed along the western coast in (1) Strathclyde (western 
Northumbria), (2) North Wales, and (3) Cornwall and Devon — 
called West Wales. In 577, after many hard-won victories. 



1 One of the Celtic leaders was Arthur, famed in story as the lord of the 
Knights of the Round Table. 



12 THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST. [616 

the West Saxons broke the resistance of the Britons in West 
Wales by occupying the valley of the Severn, thus cutting off 
the Britons of the southwest from those of North Wales and 
Strathclyde. The Angles, moving westward from the central 
coast, established the kingdom of Mercia, — the March-land, or 
border-land. In the north, under ^If rith, king of Deira and 
Bernicia, they attacked the Britons of Wales and the north, 
in 616, and defeated them in a mighty battle at Chester. This 
victory further destroyed the unity of the Britons by cutting 
off those of Wales from those of Strathclyde. As no effectual 
resistance could longer be made by the Britons, it vv-as uc,/ 
only a matter of time until the Anglo-Saxons should become 
the dominant race of the island. The Britons withdrew to 
Cornwall and the mountains of Wales, and to this day their 
descendants are proud of their Celtic blood. 

17. Early Organization of the Tribes. — During the first two 
centuries of the settlement the conquerors of Britain were not 
single powerful tribes establishing single tribal kingdoms, but 
rather dozens of small tribal groups, each under its own war- 
chief or king. Some of them were groups of warriors, kings, 
and followers ; others possibly groups of kin-families, that is, 
families connected by ties of blood, composed of men, women, 
children, and slaves. 

But the continued warfare of a century and a half effected 
changes in the organization of these peoples. In nearly all 
the groups the king became more powerful. He was still 
selected as of old from a royal family which was supposed 
to be descended from the gods. He was awarded the largest 
portion of the conquered lands and the largest share of the 
booty. As king he was supported by his people and received 
maintenance from them in the form of services and products 
of the soil. These gifts and services became more and more 
definite as time went on, and came to be looked upon as special 
royal rights that the king could grant to others if he wished. 

The king was the leader of his tribe in war and a judge 
among his people. As war-leader he had about him his 



600] COMMUNITY LIFE. 13 

followers, called gesitlias, who in. time became the oldest nobil- 
ity of the kingdom; as judge he was accustomed to enforce 
justice upon the guilty and to move frequently from place to 
place, himself and his companions being housed and fed by 
his people. He occasionally summoned the chief men of the 
tribe as councillors, and the latter sat as a body of wise-men, 
advising the king. Once a year, perhaps oftener, the king 
gathered the adult men of the tribe in a folkmdt. The folk- 
mot was originally the fighting force of the tribe, because war 
v^^as the object for which it was summoned, and the settling 
->siS- dispates, the imposing of fines, and the deciding of ques- 
tions of peace and war were not undertaken by it. Law mak- 
ing was unknown ; life was governed by the customs of the tribe, 
and authority lay in the hands of the king and his officials, who 
were his personal attendants and members of his household. 

18. Community Life. — Of the local life of the tribe we know 
very little. The people lived generally in groups, sometimes 
forming a separate community or village, sometimes clustered 
about the farmstead of a chieftain. Their common interests 
were their religion, thjir amusements, and the tilling of the 
soil. To each family group was assigned enough land for its 
support, and this portion, called a hide, was not at first a fixed 
amount, but depended on the nature of the soil. Socially the 
invaders were divided into three classes : nobles, or eorls, 
whose superiority came from heredity or birth; freemen or 
ceorls, composing the greater part of the tribe ; and slaves, 
some brought by the invaders, others obtained by conquest on 
British soil. 

Such were the chief characteristics of Anglo-Saxon life be- 
fore the year 600. Gradually the small tribes began to merge 
into the larger. Some were entirely absorbed ; some, though 
retaining their separate names, were subjugated ; and others 
were united for purposes of conquest. Instead of many small 
groups, a few larger tribal peoples appear : Kentishmen, West 
Saxons, South Saxons, East Anglians, Mercians, and North- 
umbrians. (See Maps, p. 10.) 



CHAPTER II. 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 



19. Introduction of Christianity by Roman Missionaries : in 
Kent. — The Anglo-Saxon conquerors of Britain were pagans, 
adhering to the worship of Woden, and Thor, and Tin, gods of 




i I um a photograph. 

St. Martin's Church at Canterbury, called the 

"Mother Church of England." 

It is built on the site of Queen Bertha's Chapel, where her 

husband. King JEthelbirht, is said to have been baptized. 

war and of the powers of nature. This fact had come to the 
notice of the great missionary pope, Gregory, when he was a 
deacon in Rome, and he sent Augustine, the prior of his own 
monastery, to preach the word of God to the Anglo-Saxon 
peoples. In 597 Augustine, with nearly forty other monks, 
landed on the island of Thanet in Kent. He had chosen Kent, 

14 



626] IN NORTHUMBRIA AND WESSEX. 15 

partly because it was the best known and most powerful of the 
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and partly because its king, iEthel- 
birht, had married a Frankish princess, Bertha, who was a 
Christian. Immediately on landing, Augustine sent a message 
to King ^thelbirht telling the object of his coming ; and a 
few days later the king, who had refused to allow the monks 
to come into the town, went to the place where they were, and 
sitting in the open air for fear of magic, listened to the preach- 
ing of Augustine. At its close he gave the monks full permis- 
sion to reside in the chief town of the Kentishmen, Canter- 
bury, and to win as many as they could to Christ. From that 
day Christianity took root in England, and soon ^thelbirht, 
his followers, and his people accepted the faith and were baptized. 
Augustine was made "archbishop of the English nation," 
and new workers were sent out. But outside of Kent 
progress was slow. Though the East Saxons and East 
Anglians, who at that time recognized the overlordship of 
Kent, outwardly accepted the faith, they did not long retain it, 
going back to paganism after the death of ^thelbirht in 616. 

20. In Northumbria and Wessex. — About thirty years after 
the arrival of Augustine, Eadwine, king of ISTorthumbria, who 
had married a daughter of King ^Ethelbirht received Chris- 
tianity into his kingdom. His wife was a Christian and had 
brought to her new home a Christian priest, Paulinus. 
Through the combined efforts of the queen and Paulinus, 
Eadwine accepted the faith and was baptized with many of 
his subjects. Paulinus was made bishop of the new region, 
and York becariie the seat of the new faith in the north. 

For a few years the worldly affairs of the Northumbrian 
king- prospered. Eadwine extended the power of Northumbria 
and, as Baeda ^ says, " reduced under his dominion all the bor- 

•• Bseda, commonly known as the Venerable Bede, was born in 673 and 
spent his life in the Benedictine monastery of Jarrow, dying in 735. He was 
a man greatly beloved in his day, of wide learning, and influential as a teacher 
and flrriter. His reputation chiefly rests on his Ecclesiastical History of 
Enaland. 



16 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 



[632 



ders of Britain, a thing that no British king had done before." 
Through his influence the East Anglians were persuaded " to 
abandon their idolatrous superstitions," and Paulinus preached 
the faith through Northumbria. "There was," says Bseda, 




From a 'photograph. 
Durham Cathedral. 
In this cathedral is the tomb of Bseda, with the inscription : 
' ' Hac sunt in fossa 
Baedse venerabilis ossa." 



" such perfect peace in Britain that wheresoever the kingdom of 
Eadwine extended, a woman with her new-born babe might 
walk through the island from sea to sea without receiving any 
harm." But in 632 Penda, king of Mercia and champion of 
the old pagan faith, killed Eadwine in battle, and Paulinus was 
forced to return to Kent. 

This loss to Christianity in the north was balanced by gains 



563] 



CELTIC MISSIONAEIES. 



17 



in the south, where the pope had sent missionaries to work 
among the West Saxons. As a result the king of the West 
Saxons was converted and baptized, together with his people. 

21. Introduction of Christianity by Celtic Missionaries : in 
lona, Northumbria, and Mercia. — Owing to the defeat and death 
of Eadwine of Northumbria, the Eoman missionaries for the 
time being had to confine their work to the south ; but a new 
influence was to make itself felt in the north. During the 




From a photograph, 
loNA : A General View of the Church Buildings. 
It was here that St. Columba began his missionary work in 
Scotland in 563, but none of the buildings is older than the 
twelfth century. 

Roman occupation Christianity had been introduced among the 
Brythonic Celts, and early in the fifth century it was carried 
from Gaul by St. Patrick to thei Gaelic Celts of Ireland. In 
the years that followed the Scots, who then inhabited the 
northern part of Ireland, became the most zealous advocates 
of Christianity, and not content to work at home, sought 
other fields in which to spread their faith. St. Columba, 
sometimes called the father of the Scottish nation, went 
from northern Ireland in 563 to the island of lona, where 



18 



THE CONVERSION OE ENGLAND. 



[642 



he established a monastery. From this seat as a centre, the 
Celtic monks carried Christianity throughout southwestern 

Scotland and founded the 
Christian church of Scotland. 
In Mercia after the over- 
throw of Eadwine, King 
Penda built up one of the 
most powerful tribal king- 
doms in the land. But 
Oswald, a Bernician prince, 
who had been converted to 
Christianity by the Celtic 
monks, defeated the Mercians 
and drove them out of Bci'- 
nicia and Deira. He then sent 
to lona for a missionary 
preacher and gave to the 
saintly Aidan, who came, the 
island of Lindisfarne as a 
place for a monastery. Other 
monks came into Northumbria 
and began the task of con- 
verting the people. Simple, 
humble, devoted to their work, 
they went out into the country 
places, carrying comfort into 
the homes of the Northum- 
brians and preaching the sim- 
ple doctrine of humility and 
charity. 

But Penda was still power- 
ful and the struggle between 
Mercia and Northumbria con- 
tinued for nine years. Oswald fell in 642, but his work was 
taken up by his brother Oswiu, who threw the weight of his 
influence on the side of Christianity. He defeated Penda in 




From a pliotoijvaph. 
St. Martin's Cross, Iona. 
This and one other cross, Maclean's, 
are the only survivors of 360 crosses 
that the island once possessed. 



664] THE SYNOD OF WHITBY. 19 

655, in the last great battle between paganism and Christianity, 
and became in consequence the most powerful king in England. 

22. Conflict between the Roman and Ionian Missionaries. — 
Thus in the south the conversion of the English had been 
effected by the missionaries from Eome ; in the middle and 
north by those from lona. The former derived their authority 
from the bishop of Eome, the pope ; the latter from Columba, 
the bishop of lona. Both were members of Christian churches, 
differing from each other in certain matters of ritual, such as 
the way of calculating Easter and the shaving of the head in 
the tonsure. The Roman missionaries were fewer in number, 
but more powerful because they had behind them the grow- 
ing church of the Continent and because they had sought to 
convert kings and others politically influential. The Ionian 
missionaries were more numerous, but they had vvorked more 
quietly, preaching the word of God among the people. The 
representatives of the Eoman church had more advanced ideas 
of the way in which the church should be united under one 
head and made subject to a single authority than had the 
Ionian representatives, who with very rudimentary ideas of 
organization had built up separate churches in each tribe with 
scarcely more unity than the tribes themselves. As each of the 
two systems, the Eoman with its centre at Canterbury, the 
Ionian with York as its most influential city, kept extending 
its influence, there was bound to come a conflict. This con- 
flict was settled at the synod of Whitby. 

23. The Synod of Whitby. — By 664 controversies between 
the two churches had become so frequent that King Oswiu of 
Northumbria called a synod in the monastery of Whitby. 
After elaborate arguments had been presented by Wilfrid for 
the Eoman party and Colman for the Ionian, Oswiu turned to 
Colman and said, " Is it true that Peter has received the keys 
of heaven, as Wilfrid says ? " Colman answered, " It is 
true, king." Then said Oswiu, " Can you show any such 
power given to your Columba?" "None." Then said the 
king, " Peter is the doorkeeper, and him I will not contradict, 





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From a photograph. 
A Portion of Whitby Abbey as it stands To-day, 
Whitby, Lindisfarne, and Glastonbury were the three 
greatest of the 260 Benedictine abbeys in England. 
20 



750] INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND. 21 

lest when I come to the gates of the kingdom of heaven there 
should be none to open them, he being my adversary who is 
proven to have the keys." Thus a momentous decision was 
made by the king and assented to by his councillors. The 
English church became henceforth a part of the great Conti- 
nental church, of which the bishop of Eome was rapidly becom- 
ing the recognized head, or pope; and it enjoyed not only all 
the advantages that came from contact with the more advanced 
civilization of the Continent, but all the benefits that a more 
highly organized church system could confer. The Roman 
system before a century had passed became dominant in 
England as far north as the region about Edinburgh, and aided 
greatly in furthering the national unity both of England and 
of Scotland. 

24. Organization of the Church : Theodore of Tarsus. — The 
church in England had as yet little organization or unity. 
Thus far each missionary and bishop had worked more or less 
by himself, and in his own way. There was need of some 
leader who should bind together the churches of the several 
kingdoms into a common whole. Such a man was found 
in Theodore of Tarsus, who in 669 was sent by the pope to 
England, where he remained for twenty-three years. " This 
was the first archbishop," says Bseda, " whom all the English 
church obeyed." Under Theodore discipline was improved and 
many instances of faulty management were corrected. 

Theodore convoked synods of bishops, at which rules were 
laid down to be obeyed by all the clergy. He increased the 
number of dioceses and made the bishops more responsible 
than before for the management of them. He encouraged the 
clergy to study, to take good care of their parishes, and to en- 
force the law and the discipline of the great church of which 
they were a part. The unity thus effected in the church pre- 
pared the way for unity among the different peoples and made 
easier the formation of an English nation. 

25. Influence of the Church in England : the Monasteries. — 
From 600 to 750, while the tribal peoples in the petty kingdoms 



22 THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. [750 

were warring against one another, the church stood as the one 
great uniting force seeking to place the peoples on a common 
footing as brethren in Christ. While the mass of the English, 
often only half civilized, clung to many forms of their pagan 
life, the church slowly and patiently sought to teach them 
practices that were more humane and methods of life that were 
more refined, and so became a factor in civilization. 

In the monasteries it provided peaceful centres where learn- 
ing, art, agriculture, and the sciences were encouraged, and 
where refuge was provided for those who wished to withdraw 
from the confusion of the world about them. The first monas- 
tery was established at Canterbury by King ^thelbirht. By 
the middle of the eighth century a score or more of monasteries 
existed in England. In worship and discipline, they followed 
the Benedictine rule.^ The monks maintained religious ser- 
vices, encouraged learning, and trained men in the practices of 
self-denial, charity, obedience, and labor. They cleared the 
forests, drained the marshes, built roads and bridges, and im- 
proved the great stretches of land granted to them. They 
obtained manuscripts which they copied and illustrated, and 
imported workmen who made glass vessels and iron utensils. 
In general they brought Roman art, architecture, literature, 
and ideas to England. 

The men trained in the monasteries spread widely the influence 
of the English church. In less than two centuries after the 
sending of Augustine to England, England herself was sending 
missionaries to the Continent. The most noted of these was 
Boniface, who became archbishop of Mainz. The monasteries 
trained scholars as well as missionaries, men who had been in- 
spired by Theodore of Tarsus to seek learning. By them 
schools were established, manuscripts collected, and works 

1 St. Benedict in the sixth century applied in his own monastery at Nursia, 
in Italy, rules of monastic life that were so widely adopted that within two 
hundred years his rule was in use in many thousand monasteries in western 
Europe. Every Benedictine took tlie three vows, of poverty, chastity, and 
obedience. 



750] INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH. 23 

hitherto little known made accessible to both, clergy and laity. 
The most famous schools were at Jarrow and York. Among 
their learned men were Baeda, to whose history of the English 
church we owe the greater part of our knowledge of the early 
history of England, and Alcuin, librarian of the school of York, 
who became the teacher of Charles the Great (Charlemagne). 
Thus, in the tribal wars, amid the shifting of political power, 
the church stood as the one great influence, working for the 
unity and improvement of the people. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE DANES AND THE RISE OF WESSEX. 

26. The Centre of Power shifts South. — During the rise of 
the church (Chapter II) the centre of political and military- 
power was constantly changing from one tribal kingdom to 
another. Under Oswiu and his son, Northumhria remained 
the most powerful kingdom, until in 685 it began to lose its 
prestige and Mercia again came to the front. Under King 
OfEa Mercia extended its power to the Thames, gaining control 
over the East Anglians, East Saxons, Kentishmen, and Welsh- 
men, (See Map, p. 29.) But at this time the greatness of a tribal 
kingdom depended on the personal ability of the king, and 
with the death of Offa in 796 the importance of Mercia passed 
away. The centre of power moved southward and Wessex rose 
to leadership. Egbert, of the royal family of Wessex, had lived 
for some years at the court of Charles the Great and had 
learned there to conquer and to rule. In 800 he returned to 
England and at once began his career of conquest. During the 
thirty-seven years of his reign he subjugated first the Kentish- 
men, then the South Saxons, East Saxons, and Surreymen, 
and later the East Anglians, South Humbrians, and the Welsh. 
In 823 he defeated his great Mercian rival, the successor of 
Offa. Thus he seems to have been the first king of all the 
English peoples and over-lord of many of the Celts ; but this 
was not strictly true. His supremacy differed in no way from 
that of ^thelbirht, Eadwine, Oswiu, and Offa except in its 
completeness. Kent, Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex, each 
in turn, had controlled the lesser kingdoms as long as each had 
possessed a man strong enough to maintain his lordship ; and 

24 



800] 



THE COMING OF THE DANES. 



25 



the supremacy of each kingdom disappeared as soon as a weaker 
man succeeded to the kingdom or a stronger man arose else- 
where. 

27. Conditions before the Danish Invasion. — The period from 
450 through Egbert's reign was one in which tribal conditions 
prevailed. The great divisions into Saxons, East Anglians, 
Mercians, and the like were essentially tribal in character. 
There was no national unity in England at this time, there 
was little united action of any kind ; peoples warred with each 
other, and the constant struggle for supremacy, first of Kent, 
then of Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex in turn, left the 
land an easy prey to invaders. And the invaders were at hand 
— the Danes. 

28. The Coming of the Danes. — The invaders of England in 
the eighth and ninth centuries were hardy hunters and fisher- 
men, neighbors and cousins 
of the Anglo-Saxons, bar- 
barians in government and 
manner of life. Bred of a 
venturesome spirit in the 
fiords of Scandinavia and 
Denmark, — those retreats 
which gave them the name 
of Vikings, or fiord- 
dwellers, — they were always ready to start on f reebooting ex- 
peditions toward the shores which lay nearest. Their success 
was due to their swiftness which caught their victims un- 
awares, whether on the water or on the land. On the water, 
in their long shallow boats, manned by thirty or forty warriors, 
they swept up the rivers ; on the land they formed as a swiftly 
moving army, throwing up temporary fortifications, and using 
horses in order to move more rapidly, outwitted the clumsy 
tribal levies, plundered villages and monasteries, and were 
gone before the slow and badly equipped men of the shires could 
gather to defend themselves. 

The Viking host was not a national body in the sense that 




A Viking Ship. 
Found at Gokstad, Norway. 



26 



THE RISE OF WESSEX. 



[800 



it represented a single people coming from a single kingdom. 
It was rather a collection of war-bands, each under its own 




From a photograph, 

LiNDISFAKNE AbBET. 

The original abbey (seventh century) was famous for its connection, 
with the two great monks, St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert. 
The abbey shown in the photograph was built in tlie eleventh centuiy 
on the site of the old abbey, from which the monks had been driven 
by the Danes in 883. 

individual chieftain. The invasion was, in fact, the last phase 
of the movement known as the Wandering of the Nations, of 
which the migration of the Anglo-Saxons themselves had been 
a part. 

29. The Danes as Plunderers. — The Anglo-Saxons, divided 
among themselves and helpless to cope with their skilful and 
reckless adversaries, were unable to resist the Danish advance. 



871] RESISTANCE OF WESSEX. 27 

In 793 the marauders attacked ISTorthumbria and destroyed 
the monastery of Lindisfarne ; then they pushed on toward 
the west, occupied Ireland, and in 802 burned the buildings at 
lona. These acts completel}'' crippled Northumbria. Mean- 
while, they invaded Kent and Wessex also, and their attacks 
were frequent and persistent. At first their object was merely 
plunder, and for half a century they burned and despoiled, re- 
turning home each year with their booty. But in 851 we find 
in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the ominous record, " This year 
the heathen men remained over winter at Thanet," The era 
of settlement had begun. 

30. Settlement and Conquest. — During this second stage of 
the invasion large bodies of plunderers remained permanently 
in England and lived by ravaging. They formed a military 
force whose business was fighting, quite different from the 
native country folk who took to arms only when attacked. 
The Chronicle always calls the Danish force the "army," the 
Anglo-Saxon the " militia," or levy of able-bodied men of each 
shire. In successive summers the "army" pillaged Kent, 
East Anglia, Northumbria, and Mercia, the last three of 
which passed under the Danish yoke before the close of the 
ninth century. Thus the Daiies coming originally as adven- 
turers remained as settlers. A new people, kindred of the old, 
became tillers and ploiighers of the lands it had conquered. 

31. Resistance of Wessex. — In the centre and north of 
England the Danes succeeded in their conquest. Wessex 
alone among the kingdoms was able to resist; and upon its 
king, JSthelred, and his brother Alfred, fell the heavy burden 
of saving England from becoming a Daneland. The year 870- 
871 was critical in the history of the struggle, for it was in 
that year that the Danish army, hurling itself on Wessex, 
struggled stubbornly for the victory. For four months ^thel- 
red and Alfred fought the Danes among the hills and marshes 
of Berkshire. First one side, then the other, was successful, 
till finally, in the spring of 871, ^thelred was wounded and 
died. He was succeeded by his brother Alfred, who had so 



28 



THE RISE OF WESSEX, 



[871 



loyally helped him and upheld the cause of Wessex during 
these eventful months. 

32. Alfred the Great. — Alfred the Great, by common repute 
the noblest of the early English kings, became king of the 

West Saxons in their 
hour of greatest peril. 
From his boyhood he 
had been considered 
by all who knew him 
as the most promising 
of the royal princes; 
in battle he had shown 
himself resourceful 
in command and a 
braye fighter on the 
field. He was comely 
in person, aristocratic 
in sympathies, and 
superior to all the men 
of his time in his love 
of learning and desire 
for the improvement 
of his semi-barbarous 
people. In 871, when 
twenty-three years 
old, he succeeded to 
the throne of the only 
kingdom of England 
which possessed any 

real national life or made any pretence to an efBcient political 

organization. 

33. Alfred and the Danes. — The first outlook was dis- 
couraging. With only a small force King Alfred could not 
dislodge the Danes from northern Wessex. So he sued for 
peace, and after paying a heavy tribute obtained a respite for a 
few years. 




Alfreb the Great. 

Engraved from an imaginary portrait in 

J. A. Froude's "Portraits." 



900] 



ALFRED AND THE DANES. 



29 




30 THE RISE OE WESSEX. [885 

The Danes, being bought off, turned aside from Wessex, 
but in 877 they renewed their assault. They overran the 
eastern portion of the kingdom, captured London and Win- 
chester, and occupied a fortified camp at Chippenham. Alfred 
built a fleet of " long ships " in 877, manned them with ex- 
perienced sailors from abroad, and endeavored to guard the 
coast from attack. But twice he was obliged to pay additional 
money to the Danes to withdraw. Finally, with a small band 
of followers, Alfred made his way to Somerset, to an island 
called Athelney, surrounded by marshes and rivers into which 
no one could enter without boats. Here he made a fort, and 
laid his plans for victory.^ Gradually in the spring of 878 he 
gathered more men about him, and when he felt that his force 
was strong enough, he fell upon the whole Danish army at 
Edington, and defeated it with great slaughter. He drove 
back the Danes to their retreat at Chippenham, laid siege to 
the place, and by threatening them with starvation, compelled 
them to sue for peace (878). This was the peace of Chippen- 
ham. 

34. Alfred and Guthrum's Peace. — Guthrum, the Danish 
king, entered into friendly relations with Alfred, was baptized 
with thirty of his followers, and during the following years 
settled down in East Anglia as the peaceful subject of the 
king. In 885 Alfred seized London, and the next year made a 
second treaty with Guthrum.^ By this treaty the boundary 
between the English and Danes was defined, giving the 
Danes the north and east, the West Saxons the south and 
west. The English and the Danes on the northeast obeyed 
the Danelaw; the West Saxons, Mercians, Surreymen, South 



1 At Athelney, in 1693, was found the famous enamelled jewel of Alfred's, 
bearing the inscription, "Mitred mec hehgewyrcan" ("Alfred ordered me 
to be made "). 

2 This treaty has often been confused with that of Chippenham, 878, but as 
the boundary between Wessex and the Danelaw left London in Alfred's 
hands, the terms of that boundary must have been arranged after Alfred's 
capture of that city in 885. 



885] 



EFFECTS OF THE DANISH INVASION. 



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Saxons, and Kentishmen 
on the southwest obeyed 
the West Saxon law. 

The consequences of 
this arrangement were of 
vast importance for Eng- 
land. Alfred had emerged 
from the struggle strength- 
ened rather than weak- 
ened, for he now ruled 
over a territory nearly 
twice as large as that 
which his brother ^th- 
elred had controlled, and 
the opportunity was at 
last offered of establishing 
a powerful English king- 
dom in the south, the 
growth of which was to 
mean an English state and 
an English nation. At the 
same time a new racial 
element, the Danes, had 
been introduced into Eng- 
land, strengthening and 
invigorating the Anglo- 
Saxon stock. 

35. Effects of the Danish 
Invasion. — The evil effects 
of the Danish conquest 
were, in the beginning, 
everywhere apparent. 
Monasteries were sacked, 
towns destroyed, harvests 
ruined, and hundreds of 
prisoners taken and sold 



32 THE RISE OF WESSEX. [897 

into slavery. Whole districts were devastated, the English 
driven out or made subject, and the monastic centres of learn- 
ing and Christian influence ceased to exist. The effects of 
this destruction were startling. Alfred says in his preface 
to the translation of Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care : " So clean 
was learning fallen away among the English, that there were 
very few on this side of the Humber who knew how to render 
their daily prayers in English, or so much as translate an 
epistle out of Latin into English. I ween that there were 
not so many beyond the Humber. They were so few that I 
cannot think of a single one south of the Thames when I took 
the kingdom." 

On the other hand, the good effects of the Danish invasion 
were many. By forcing political unity upon Wessex, the king- 
dom in which lay the future of England, it prepared the way 
for the unity of all Christian England. Hereafter the Celts 
in Devon and Somerset, the Saxons in Mercia, and the 
Jutes in Kent were to become Englishmen. Then, too, the 
Danes brought a fresh supply of Teutonic blood into England, 
and strengthened the institutions which the Angles and Sax- 
ons had already established. In law and language, in habits 
and customs of life, the two peoples had so much in common 
that for their union into one nation only a reasonable period 
of time was necessary. 

36. Alfred's Work in Wessex. — Though King Alfred contin- 
ued his war against the Danes until the year 896, his military 
work had been largely accomplished by 881, and he was able 
to turn to matters of internal reorganization and reform. 

His first consideration was for the defences of his kingdom. 
Already, in 877, he had commanded "long ships" to be built 
for the protection of the coast, and equipped them with ex- 
perienced sailors hired from among the Frisians. Twice he 
met the Danes on their own element, defeated them, and cap- 
tured their ships. In 897 he enlarged the navy by the con- 
struction of ships twice as large as the others, and propelled 
by sixty oars or more. In the army his changes were even 



897] ALFRED'S WORK IN WESSEX. , 33 

more radical. He increased the number of thanes, and re- 
quired of them a more regular military service. He divided 
them into three groups, one of which was always to be with 
him. In this way he provided for a permanent body of heavy- 
armed men. The freemen of the shires, who fought on foot, he 
divided into two parts, one of which remained at home, while 
the other accompanied the king and the thanes in war. To 
meet the Danes he mounted many of his men on horseback 
for greater rapidity of movement. To others he intrusted the 
erection of fortified camps, and the strengthening and defence 
of the burghs. It is a noteworthy evidence of the success of 
these changes that for nearly a century after this time, his 
successors were almost continuously successful in all conflicts 
with the Danes. 

Alfred strengthened also the organization of the church, and 
brought it into closer contact with the Continental church of 
which it was a part. He constantly sent alms and letters to 
Rome and received gifts of manuscripts and relics in return. 
He erected two new monasteries in Wessex, and in one of 
these he placed his own daughter as abbess, and to each he 
gave an ample endowment. He strengthened neighboring 
monasteries in Mercia, and gave freely not only to churches 
in England, but also to those in Brittany and Ireland. 

For learning and literature his work is especially famous. 
He organized schools both at his court and at the monasteries, 
demanding the attendance of his own children, as well as those 
of the nobility, that they might read Latin and Saxon books 
and learn to write. About him he gathered men of learning : 
priests and scholars, who aided him in his work. He read 
books and had others read to him. For the instruction of the 
clergy, he translated, from the Latin, Gregory's Pastoral 
Care, and other Latin works on philosophy and history. 
Either he or one of his Mercian scholars made a version of 
Bseda's Ecclesiastical History ; and a group of monks, probably 
at Winchester, the capital of the West Saxons, gave a splendid 
impetus to Anglo-Saxon prose by gathering together, under 




34 THE RISE OF WESSEX. [897 

Alfred's inspiration, the annals kept in the monasteries and 
continuing them in the form of a history called the Anglo- 
Saxon Chronicle. The translation of Baeda and the writing 

tT)i^OtUnD Anno memorato 

vitZrtcmer Cci->^|nr, prsef atse eclypsis 

(TX rC^ufelv et mox sequentis 

Zx\6(}ttCi£r* <hW &}' cclmw) pestilentiae, quo et Col man 
dltrCOpur iXDaViVDii CaZnoli episcopus unanima catholi- 
CortU'DI [f)T6^TlOV^YllY2^kmm corum intentione superatus 
i^ TUCy ndi^ltpiXT-j^ ad suos reversus est . . . 

A Portion of B^da's Ecclesiastical History. 
From an eighth century copy in the British Museum. 
In the year already mentioned of the aforesaid eclipse and the plague that 
followed, when also Colman the bishop returned to his own people after 
suffering defeat [at the Synod of Whitby] through the united efforts of 
the catholics [the Roman party under Wilfrid], [Archbishop Deusdedit 
died]. A.D. 664. 

of the Chronicle bear witness to the growing national spirit 
that Alfred was stimulating in Wessex. 

In laio the king's efforts were no less successful. He 
gathered into one code the laws of the West Saxoti kings, of 
^thelbirht of Kent, and of Offa of Mercia. This collection 
is of great importance ; for not only is it one of the greatest 
monuments of this prudent and far-sighted king, but it laid 
the foundation for law in Wessex, and upon it were built the 
laws of his successors. 

What he did for government is more difficult to determine ; 
as later generations, impressed with Alfred's greatness, at- 
tributed to him laws that were not his, and political changes 
that he did not effect. We know that he was constantly ex- 
horting his ministers to govern more wisely, and that he him- 



899] ALFKED'S CHARACTER. 35 

self kept careful watch to see that justice was done throughout 
the kingdom. He made the central government more efiELcient 
by frequent meetings of his chief advisers, and also controlled 
local affairs by sending chosen persons to see that peace was 
maintained and that the good of his people was considered in 
the smaller districts. 

For industry Alfred accomplished much. He encouraged 
manufactures, particularly artisan work, such as the making 
of articles in gold, and promoted trade and commerce, sending 
expeditions to the Baltic and elsewhere. He was in frequent 
communication with foreign kings and patriarchs, with whom 
he exchanged letters and gifts. At home he restored cities 
and towns that had been destroyed by the Danes, and he re- 
built many royal villas. All this was accomplished by a man 
who was tormented during his life by a grievous sickness and 
who died at the early age of fifty-two, October 26, 901 (899 ?).i 

37. Alfred's Character. — Alfred is the most important person 
whom we have thus far met in the history of England, and he 
is the first of whom we have any detailed or accurate knowl- 
edge. Under him we begin to pass from the older tribal con- 
ditions to more settled forms of life and government. He 
laid the foundation for a permanent state, in which there was 
better administration and where the possession of land was 
becoming a more important factor. But the perfectness of 
Alfred's character has been heightened unnecessarily by the 
exaggerated praises of many modern writers. Even to the 
men of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Alfred was 
"England's darling," and he has remained such ever since. 
Nevertheless, there is little warrant in what we know of 
Alfred for making him a saint. He was one of the founders 
of England : his works speak for him and sufficiently indicate 
his greatness. 

1 The year of Alfred's death is uncertain. Stevenson, after a critical ex- 
amination of the evidence, decides in favor of 899; E.H.R., 1898, p. 71. His 
conclusions had the high approval of Bishop Stubbs. Plummer, however, 
decides in favor of 900 ; Alfred, pp. 197-198. 



36 THE RISE OF WESSEX. [959-975 

38. Expansion of "Wessex. — Alfred was followed by a line of 
noteworthy kings who maintained the dignity of Wessex and 
extended its power not only over Danish territory, but in the 
regions occupied by the Celts as well. Under Eadward the 
Elder (901-924), ^thelstan (924-940), Eadmund (940-946), 
Eadred (946-959), and Eadgar (959-975), the boundaries of 
Wessex were widened by the addition of conquered territory, 
its laws and methods of government carried north of the 
Thames, and its inhabitants and the Danes bound together into 
a closer union. Eadward the Elder extended the West Saxon 
supremacy over East Anglia and central Wales, -^thelstan 
added Northumbria, from which Eadmund later drove out the 
Danish king. Eadmund and his successor Eadred made com- 
pacts with the king of the Scots, which showed that the power 
and reputation of Wessex had been carried far to the north and 
that its king was recognized in some way as the superior of the 
tribal kings of the Scots and Britons. By the expansion of 
Wessex a national England was gradually coming into 
existence, 

39. Eadgar. — Eadgar reigned from 959 to 975, and under 
him England of the Anglo-Saxon period rose to its highest 
point of political power. This prominence was due, not to 
Eadgar alone, but in no small part to the statesmanlike genius 
of Archbishop Dunstan, who was the chief adviser of the king. 
These two men brought about the most important measures 
which have made Eadgar's reign prominent in English history. 
For the first time the kingdom was at peace. " Eadgar loved 
God's law and bettered the peace of the folk beyond any king 
who had gone before him," says the Clironide. This good 
work he accomplished in many ways : he guarded the kingdom 
against invasion by invading Wales and Strathclyde to check 
rebellious movements among the Celts ; he enlarged the fleet 
and coasted around England to ward off attacks from the 
Danes, notably those who were in Ireland ; and he preserved 
friendly relations with the rulers of the Celts in the north and 
northwest. "And all the kings of this island," says an old 



959-975] EADGAR. 37 

chronicler, "of Cumbrians and Scots, eight kings, came to 
Eadgar once upon a time in one day, and they all bowed to 
Eadgar's government." A later writer, fond of exaggeration, 
tells ns that eight kings rowed King Eadgar on the river Dee 
while the latter steered with a golden rudder. The tale shows 
the power of Eadgar's name. 

Eadgar strengthened the internal government of his kingdomc 
His predecessors had already recognized the need of improv- 
ing its organization and had placed Essex and East Anglia, 
and later Northumbria and Mercia, under the control of ealdor- 
men, who ruled there for the king. But Eadgar, knowing the 
difficulty of governing so large a region, in days when com- 
munication was slow, divided Northumbria into two ealdor- 
manries and Wessex into three. The ealdormen were selected 
from among the most influential men of each region ; indeed, 
they were often sub-kings, whom the West Saxon kings had 
subdued, and there was always danger that they would grow 
more important than the king himself and would usurp his 
authority in the region. But Eadgar was strong enough to 
control his ealdormen. '' Twice a year, summer and winter, 
he rode through every shire ^ inquiring into the judgments of 
his ealdormen, and showing himself a powerful avenger in the 
name of justice." 

Eadgar stirred up the people in their towns and villages 
by increasing the usefulness of local institutions. He required 
the courts to meet regularly and made the hundred ^ respon- 
sible for the preservation of the peace and for looking after 
thieves. Eadgar also made money uniform throughout the 
kingdom, and established one standard for weights and meas- 
ures. He sought to conciliate the Danes and to transform 
them into loyal subjects by allowing t?iem to be tried by their 
own laws, by appointing many of them ealdormen, and then by 
summoning those whom he appointed to sit among his wise- 
men. 

1 For shire, see p. 42. 2 -por hundred, see p. 43. 



38 THE KISE OF WESSEX. , [975 

40. Dunstan's Reforms. — In all theSe political reforms 




From a photograph. 
Glastonbury Abbey. 
Where Dunstan and Eadgar were said to be buried. 

Dunstan helped the king, but he was himself more interested 
in the condition of the church and the clergy. Since the 



975] DUNSTAN'S EEFOEMS. 39 

founding of the Benedictine monasteries in England, in the 
years from 600 to 750, the spiritual life of the monks, not only 
in England but on the Continent also, had deteriorated, and in 
the tenth century a movement had begun at the monastery of 
Cluny in Burgundy for the improvement of the clergy through- 
out the church. This revival spread to England, where 
Dunstan was eager to take up the new movement. 

He wished to bring the church in England into closer touch 
with the church on the Continent ; to increase the number of 
monasteries in England, and to have them all managed alike 
under the reformed Benedictine rule of Cluny ; to bring in 
books of higher scholarship and deeper spiritual character, 
and so arouse the English monks to a greater interest in liter- 
ary and spiritual things ; lastly, to stop the marriage of the 
clergy, and to prevent the archbishops, bishops, and abbots 
from taking prominent part in political affairs and so neglect- 
ing their religious duties. 

His efforts, however, were only partly successful. His re- 
forms were premature and roused great opposition. With the 
death of Eadgar in 975 he lost his best ally, and though he 
lived thirteen years longer, he made but few attempts to com- 
plete what he had begun. When he died in 988 Anglo-Saxon 
England was already entering on a period marked by disaster 
and decay. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ANGLO-SAXON INSTITUTIONS. 

41. Anglo-Saxon Life. — By the close of Eadgar's reign, a cen- 
tury after the accession of Alfred, Anglo-Saxon methods of life 
and government had become well defined. Tribal organization 
and custom, tribal feeling and ways of thinking still prevailed, 
and formed the starting point in the development of political 
life. Some important political changes can be seen. The 
king of the tribe had become the king of all England; the 
witan or council of wise-men had risen steadily in importance 
as the royal power had increased ; the thanes, in the old time 
personal attendants on the king, had become great territorial 
lords ; the old tribal kingdoms had ceased to be the seats of 
separate peoples and had become administrative districts or 
shires of the larger kingdom ; the sub-kings had frequently be- 
come ealdormen of the shire or group of shires ; and the old 
folkmot of the tribe had become the court of the shire. Within 
the shire another division called the hundred had been growing 
more and more prominent ; finally, the old attitude toward 
landholding and the old tribal customs had become modified, 
largely through the influence of the church. 

42. The King. — Most striking of these changes was the 
growth in the power and position of the king. Originally the 
divinely descended leader of his tribe, he had become the per- 
manent ruler of a great and settled people. He was selected 
or approved by the great men of the kingdom sitting in 
council, from a particular family whose hereditary right to 
furnish kings for the tribe was based on descent from the 
gods. By the time of Alfred, and probably earlier, consecra- 

40 



975] THE WITAK 41 

tion by the archbishop of Canterbury added to the sanctity of 
the royal office. 

The king had three functions : 1. He was a warrior, the 
head of the people in arms. 2. He was a law-giver acting with 
his chief advisers, — the witan. Of these laws, written in 
Anglo-Saxon, many collections still exist. 3. He was 2^ judge, 
but he held no court and had little to do with the execution of 
justice. At first he acted when justice could not be obtained 
elsewhere or in cases of land disputes between his chief men. 
As time went on, he came to be considered as the source of 
justice, and crimes or breaches of the peace came to be looked 
upon as offences against him. This idea of the " king's peace " 
instead of the folk's peace increased men's respect for the king, 
but it is to be remembered that during the Anglo-Saxon period 
the character of the central government of the kingdom de- 
pended on the personality of the king. There were no definite 
and fixed institutions as there are to-day. 

The king had three sources of income : first, the revenues 
from the royal lands, and certain supplies furnished yearly by 
his people ; ^ second, a portion of all fines imposed in the local 
courts of the shire and hundred, including property forfeited 
for treason ; and third, tolls from markets, fairs, the use of 
harbors and navigable rivers, and from other privileges con- 
nected with trade. 

"With the king was his household, consisting of those who 
looked after his affairs. The butler, the chamberlain, and the 
seneschal, or steward, were at first, as their names imply, 
attendants on the table, the chambers, and the cellar, but even 
in Eadgar's day they were becoming important officials at the 
king's court. 

43. The Witan. — Whenever the king wished cooperation 
and advice, he called for the chief men of the kingdom, who, 
when present with the king, were known as the witan or wise- 

1 For example, Westbury sent yearly to the royal vill : " two tuns of strong 
ale, a comb of mild ale, a comb of Welsh ale ; seven oxen, six sheep, forty 
cheeses, thirty ambers of corn [120 bushels], four ambers of meal." 



42 ANGLO-SAXON INSTITUTIONS. [975 

men. This body was made up of those only whom the king 
desired to summon, — members of the royal family, high officials 
in the church, prominent thanes, ealdorraen, and others whom 
the king selected. These men met at one of the royal villas, 
usually three or four times a year, and formed the king's per- 
sonal council. • The witan had but one chief function, to 
cooperate with the king in certain matters, such as (1) the 
writing down and issuing the customs and laws of the king- 
dom ; (2) making peace ; (3) levying the Danegeld, the first 
direct tax in English history, imposed for the purpose of buy- 
ing off the Danes ; (4) hearing, with the king, cases relating to 
land disputes; and (5) making grants of royal land to church 
or thane. 

44. The Shire and the Shiremot. — The earliest Anglo-Saxon 
shires were regions originally occupied by small but indepen- 
dent tribes, conquered by the West Saxons and made subject 
to the authority of the West Saxon king. Some of the later 
shires, particularly in Mercia, were more artificially formed, 
and were not established until the twelfth century. At first, 
probably young members of the royal family were at the 
head of the shire or group of shires in southern England, but 
afterwards, the head was usually the ealdorman, an official 
selected by the king and the witan from the prominent men of 
the locality. Thus the ealdormen, being natives of the shire, 
sided with the locality rather than with the king. In this 
respect they differed from that other prominent man of the 
shire — the shire-reeve or sheriff. The sheriff was in origin a 
royal servant, sent to take charge of the royal lands in the 
shire, to collect the king's revenues there, and to receive the 
king's share of the fines imposed by the courts. The sheriff 
was at first a subordinate, an underling ; but he was to rise as 
monarchy rose until, in time, his office became one of the most 
influential in the kingdom, sought for by men of highest rank. 

The shiremot was the gathering of the chief landowners, the 
men of influence in the shire, any one of whom could send his 
steward or reeve of his estates if he was unable to be present. 



975] THE HUNDRED AND THE HUNDREDMOT. 43 

There were also in attendance the bishop, whose diocese gen- 
erally coincided with the shire, the ealdorman, and probably 
the sheriff, who summoned the mot. The shiremot was a dig- 
nified and independent body, that met formally only twice a 
year, though it may have met more often in a less formal way. 
It enforced the folklaw, — that is, the local customs, — and 
applied such laws as were declared and enacted by the king 
and witan. It had chiefly to do with : (1) land questions ; (2) 
the enforcement of military service ; (3) some ecclesiasti- 
cal matters ; and (4) cases which after three trials had not 
been satisfactorily decided in the hundred court. 

45. The Hundred and the Hundredmot. — The shires were 
subdivided into hundreds, each of which in origin was probably 
composed of a hundred hides of land, that is, a hundred areas 
of ploughland, pasture, meadow, and wood sufficient for family 
support. Such a grouping was necessary for military and 
financial purposes, that is, for the gathering of the militia and 
the collection of tribute. Probably at first the territory was 
not used for administration, that is, for maintaining peace and 
justice in the locality ; Eadgar was the first, so far as we know, 
to employ it for that purpose. Therefore the hundred court is 
not as old as the shire court. 

The hundred court met every four weeks and was attended 
by the small landowners of the hundred and the inhabitants of 
the villages, who probably rarely went to the shiremot. For 
the people the hundred was the busiest and most important of 
all the divisions of the kingdom ; and the hundredmot, held 
frequently and within easy reach of all, was the place where 
they settled their quarrels and tried all sorts of petty cases. 
Few of the lesser people ever went out of a hundred or had 
anything to do with king or shiremot. At the head of the 
hundredmot was the sheriff or one of his subordinates ; pos- 
sibly some ecclesiastic, like an archdeacon, sat with the sheriff, 
just as in the shiremot the bishop sat with the ealdorman. 
The court had three kinds of justice to deal with : first, civil, 
concerning land ; second, criminal, concerning house-breaking, 



44 ANGLO-SAXON INSTITUTIONS. [975 

blood shedding, assault, theft, and the like ; third, ecclesiastical, 
concerning breaches of the church law. Every one had to seek 
justice first in the hundred court. If after three trials the 
freeman could not obtain justice there, he might then go to the 
shire court. But an appeal to this higher court must have 
been a rare occurrence ; a further appeal to the king was for- 
bidden. 

46. The Vill. — Within the hundred were the tuns, or vills. 
Some of the tuns were doubtless single farmsteads, but usually 
they were clusters of houses occupied by the villagers, the 
freemen, who went to the mot, made up the military levy, and 
cultivated the soil. The vill was surrounded by open, ploughed 
fields and by meadows, pasture, waste, and forest. The open 
fields, so called because they were not hedged in, were divided 
into narrow strips, which were so distributed as to give the 
villagers equal shares of good ploughland. Each villager had 
a homestead, a certain number of the strips, and definite rights 
in the meadows and pasture. The villagers owned the land 
separately, but all ploughed, sowed, and reaped together. The 
vill had no political importance and is rarely mentioned in the 
laws ; but it was probably used as a unit of police administration, 
keeping the peace and detecting criminals. 

The inhabitants of the vills were originally the freemen of 
the tribes. During the long struggle with the Danes, many of 
these free villagers, losing all that they possessed, had been 
compelled to seek the protection of more powerful landowners ; 
while others, reduced to poverty by the heavy cost of the war 
carried on in Wessex and Mercia, had pledged their lands, and 
on receiving them back had bound themselves to new obliga- 
tions of payment and labor. But each villager, whether he had 
pledged himself or not, had his wergeld, or price at which he 
was valued in case he were murdered, was liable to be called 
upon to serve in the army, and could get justice, if he needed 
it, in the hundredmot. 

47. The Burgh. — Besides the tuns, or vills, there were also 
burghs, settlements more compact than the vills, with larger 



975] 



THE BURGH. 



45 



numbers of inhabitants, and with special privileges which the 
vills did not possess. Most of the burghs at this early time 




Strips of Land. 

There is no drawing of any strips of land at this time, but the above 
plan from a later date (1606) shows how the land was probably divided. 

were half agricultural communities and half trading centres, 
located in places, on the coast or inland, favorable for trade 
and fortification. The origin of the burghs is obscure. Some 



46 ANGLO-SAXON INSTITUTIONS. [975 

of them, such as Lincoln and Winchester, go back to the days 
of the Roman occupation; others were the chief towns of shires, 
possessing a market and a court ; while others, such as Worcester, 
Hertford, and Warwick, may trace their origin to some of the 
fortresses erected by the West Saxon kings during the wars 
with the Danes. Trade gave to these centres their exceptional 
advantages; so that the name *' burgh" was finally restricted 
either to those places specially fortified which were in conven- 
ient trading localities, or to those places which, as seats of the 
royal administration, had become trading centres because they 
were under the special protection of the king's peace. In these 
burghs were placed the markets, and in them money was coined, 
and business transacted. 

Most interesting of all the special privileges of a burgh were 
its judicial rights. Eadgar decreed that three times a year a 
burghgemdt should meet, over which the burgh-reeve should 
preside. This court had to do with the affairs of the burghers, 
just as the hundredmot had to do with the affairs of the people 
of the hundred ; for a burgh in which a court was held was not 
under the jurisdiction of the hundred court, — it was a hundred 
all by itself. It was, however, in the shire and under the 
sheriff. 

48. The Land System. — At first there was only one name for 
all occupied land, namely folkland, and the families possessing 
or disposing of such lands were governed by the unwritten law 
of the folk — the folklaw. That is why these lands were called 
folklands. All the Anglo-Saxon households, from that of the 
king to those of the non-noble freeman who possessed land at 
all, had folklands. The name by which these family lands are 
commonly known is the hide, and the lands of a hide could not 
be sold or given away without the consent of the family. 

The royal family had its own folklands or royal demesnes, 
from which the king and other members derived a large part 
of their support. But the king as king had special rights over 
his subjects and their folklands. At first the king alone en- 
joyed these rights ; but when after the coming of the monks 



975] GENERAL ASPECTS OF ANGLO-SAXON LIFE. 47 

he desired for the good of his soul to make gifts to the church, 
he began to give these rights away. The monks took good care 
that these gifts should be recorded in a deed which was called 
a charter or hook. These grants were of lands already occupied, 
so that the value of the gift lay not in the land itself, but in 
the revenue and services which the monks received from the 
people who occupied it. These lands were called booMands, 
and a single bookland might include many folklands. After- 
ward the kings made similar grants to their thanes for faithful 
service done. One of the greatest advantages of this form of 
landholding was that the person or church to whom a bookland 
was given was not bound by the folklaw, but could give or sell 
freely that which he had received. 

At first, booklands were given without any condition at- 
tached, but in the ninth century we meet with grants that were 
not outright gifts; they were loans. The church made the 
greater number of these loans, for the idea of the " loan," like 
the idea of the "book," was brought to England from the 
Continent by the church. Such loans were made to thanes, 
chiefly those of high rank. But the thane could not dispose 
of this land as he pleased ; the church had merely loaned it to 
him that he might enjoy the revenues from it for a limited 
time. In return for this concession the thane paid the church 
in money or in service. Such lands were called loanlands. 

49. General Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Life. — Among the mass 
of the Anglo-Saxon people the conditions of life were still 
tribal, that is, the kindred was more important than the individ- 
ual. Settlement was by groups, boimd together by blood. 
These group-families held together in their friendships and 
their hostilities. Illustrations of this family unity are : the 
blood-feuds, in which for a man killed on one side another on 
the other side might be killed also ; the wergeld, or money sub- 
stitute, which a family might pay for a person slain by one 
of its members ; and the compurgators, or oath-helpers, who in 
origin were kinsmen bearing witness to the character of 
one of their family. Other illustrations are the folklands, 



48 ANGLO-SAXON INSTITUTIONS [975 

which were family lands, the common ■ ploughing, and the 
right of the family to control the gift or sale of such lands, to 
regulate such matters of common interest as succession to its 
headship, the guardianship of minors, the marriage of children. 
Gradually individual rights began to appear, as seen in book- 
land and the king's peace ; but chiefly among the higher classes. 
Among the lesser folk the old family customs and practices 
remained for centuries. 

50. Justice. — Keeping the peace was at first a family obliga- 
tion. Kindred groups were held responsible for the conduct of 
their members. Later, freemen were required to find lords who 
would be surety for their good behavior. A man might be 
charged with a great crime, a felony; or a lesser crime, a 
trespass. If the former, he was at the king's mercy; if 
the latter, he might get of£ with paying a fine. But how 
was he proved guilty ? Eirst, in the presence of the free 
landowners, who made up the hundred court and acted 
as judges, he was charged with the crime by the com- 
plainant in formal words. This charge he answered in words 
equally formal. Then those present decided, according to the 
correctness of the forms used, which of the two should be put 
to the proof. The one adjudged guilty could clear himself (1) by 
the ordeal of water, that is, if he sank after being thrown in, 
he was innocent ; or (2) by the ordeal of fire, which necessitated 
his walking over or carrying hot irons, and if after three days 
he showed the marks of the burns, he was guilty ; or (3) by the 
testimony of a certain number of oath-helpers or compurgators, 
who bore witness to his character. 

51. Agriculture. — Agriculture was the dominant interest 
among the Anglo-Saxons. ' Men tilled the fields and raised 
barley, oats, wheat, beans, and the like ; they lived in thatched 
huts without chimneys, and kept oxen, cows, sheep, goats, 
swine, poultry, and bees. Upon the churchlands and in the 
burghs stone was used in building, and the standard of life was 
higher than in the country places. Roads were very poor, so 
that there was very little communication ; men rarely travelled, 



975] THE LANGUAGE. 49 

and the produce of a vill was not taken away to be sold, but 
was consumed where it was raised. There was almost no 
money in circulation except in the trading centres. Men paid 
their dues to the king or' to the church in certain amounts of 
grain or malt, honey and ale, in a certain number of hens and 
chickens, fish, sheep, or in the performance of certain duties. 

52. The Language. — The Angles and Saxons, when they 
came to Britain, must have spoken a language almost entirely 
free from an admixture of foreign words. After they had 
settled in the island, a few Latin and Celtic words crept in, 
but the number was small. In time, dialects arose, chief of 
which were the West Saxon, the Mercian, and the ISTorthumbrian. 
Slowly a literature, poetry and prose, came into existence. 
But learned men wrote in Latin, and most of the charters are 
in that language. Anglo-Saxon, however, was the tongue of 
the Chronicle, of the laws, of the poets, and of some of the 
great preachers. It was everywhere the speech of the people. 



CHAPTER V. 

DECLINE OF ANGLO-SAXON POWER. 

53. Character of the Period. — The period from the close of 
Eadgar's reign to the Norman Conquest (975-1066) was one of 
great disturbance and confusion. With few exceptions the 
Anglo-Saxon kings showed little of the military sagacity and 
statesmanship of their predecessors. From without, continued 
Danish attacks brought misery to the people ; while within the 
kingdom there arose great territorial lords, whose ambitiqns 
and quarrels threatened England with disunion and civil war. 

After the short reign of Eadward the Martyr, JEthelred, the 
younger son of Eadgar, became king in 979. Idle and in- 
competent, he was unfit to rule by himself, and his councillors, 
ambitious and evil-minded, gave him only bad advice. JEthel- 
red the Redeless, " the unwisely advised," he was justly called 
in his own day. The great earls took advantage of his weak- 
ness, and each became in his own earldom an independent lord. 
Thus the English, governed by an inefficient king, and divided 
among themselves by the rivalries of the ealdormen, were in 
no condition to meet the attack of the Danes, who now appeared 
off their coasts. 

This new invasion of the Danes was very different from that 
of Alfred's day. It was now the work of the Danish king and 
army, coming from a Danish kingdom, and it had a purpose 
and unity that the earlier movement lacked. The preceding in- 
vasion of the ninth century was the last phase of a great tribal 
wandering, that is, it was the work of tribes; whereas the 
invasion of the tenth and eleventh centuries was the work of 
kings. 

54. The Danish Conquest. — The ships of the Danes were 

50 



1016] THE DANISH CONQUEST. 61 

seen in 980 off Southampton, and later off the east coast. 
After desperate fighting the English made a peace with the 
Danish king and arranged the terms under which English and 
Danes should live side by side, each under his own law. For 
the peace they paid a tribute of £10,000. In 994 £16,000 more 
was paid. Tribute once given was sought again more eagerly. 
In 999 king and witan raised a ship force to cooperate with the 
land force, but so inefficient was the management that nothing 
was accomplished ; and again tribute was paid, to the amount 
of £24,000.^ Finally, in 1002, other measures having failed, 
^thelred resorted to massacre and caused the Danish residents 
in southern England to be slain. 

Sweyn Eork-beard, king of the Danes, who had been among 
the earlier invaders and whose sister had been slain in the 
massacre, now returned to England to wreak a terrible ven- 
geance. With all the bloodthirstiness of a Viking he struck 
blow after blow, burned towns and ruined harvests. In 1007 
the terrified and helpless English paid more than £30,000 in 
tribute. In 1009 ship money was levied, ships were built, and 
a national fast observed; but all to no purpose. Jealousy, 
treachery, and bad management prevailed among the English, 
and rendered all efforts useless. At last the men of the north, 
who had never wanted ^Ethelred for their king, went over to 
Sweyn ; Wessex, East Anglia, and London followed, and J5thel- 
red was forced to flee across the channel to Normandy. 

In 1014 Sweyn died, leaving the kingdom to his son Cnut, 
who, after the death of JSthelred in 1016, was proclaimed king 
by a portion of the English. Another portion — the citizens 
of London, and a few of the chief men — declared for the son 
of ^thelred, Edmund, called Ironside for his bravery. For 
nine months the struggle between the two claimants to the 
throne lasted, until the death of Edmund the same year left 

lit is interesting to notice that from this time Scandinavia " was flooded 
with the English silver money " of the coinage of ^thelred, and that to-day 
more coins of this mintage are to be found in Scandinavian museums than in 
the British Museum. 



52 



DECLINE OF ANGLO-SAXON POWER. 



[1028 



Cnut in possession of the kingdom. In London, in December, 
he was recognized as king of all England. 

55. Cnut. — In 1016 Cnut was in control of but one kingdom, 
that of England ; he had some title to Norway, which he made 
good in 1028, and in 1020 he was chosen king by the Danes of 
Denmark. Thus England, toward the end of Cnut's reign, 
was but part of a great northern empire, an empire, however, 



Empire of 

CNUT THE GREAT 

1014-1035 




not firmly united even under Cnut, but composed of three 
peoples representing different degrees of civilization, and 
widely separated from each other by intervening waters. Al- 
though Cnut had shown the fierceness and cruelty of a Viking 
in the earlier years of warfare, he exhibited, as the years 
passed, a high order of statesmanship. He loved the English 
as his own people and favored the church, sometimes too 
ostentatiously. He became a true English king, carrying out 



1018] CNUT'S FOREIGN RELATIONS. 53 

the policy of his great predecessors of the house of Alfred, 
iucreasing the strength of the kingdom, and furthering the 
peace and prosperity of his people. 

56. The Great Earldoms. — Cnut divided England into four 
provinces or earldoms, each of which he placed under a man 
whom he could trust. The earldoms conformed to the four 
great tribal divisions into which England had always been 
separated, even under the West Saxon kings, — East Anglia, 
Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex. The ISTorthumbrians, East 
Anglians, Mercians, and West Saxons may be called the four 
races of the English nation. 

57. Cnut's Government and Law. — Cnut sought to blot out 
all traces of the earlier wars and to unite English and Danes 
under a peaceful and prosperous rule. To this end he sent his 
Danish army back to Denmark in 1018, retaining only the 
crews of forty ships in the royal service. He maintained 
Norse and Danish earls in office, but refused to introduce Dan- 
ish law into the kingdom, and in 1018 he gathered English and 
Danes together at Oxford, where all chose Eadgar's law and 
swore to observe it. Two years later he issued a general 
promise of good government, and in the course of his reign 
caused a code of English law to be drawn up, enlarged, and 
improved. This law Cnut bade men obey, and obedience 
brought peace and concord to England. 

58. Cnut's Foreign Relations. — Cnut displayed the same far- 
sighted statesmanship in foreign affairs. As ruler of England, 
Denmark, and Norway, and of lands on the south Baltic shores, 
his interests were wider than had been those of any English 
king up to this time. He preserved peaceful relations with 
the Welsh and Scots, and when, in 1018, Malcolm II of Scot- 
land defeated the Northumbrians and seized Lothian, Cnut^ 
who had just dismissed his Danish army, was unable to pre- 
vent that region from separating permanently from England — 
an event of great importance in Scottish history. He married 
Emma, ^thelred's widow and a daughter of a Norman duke, 
hoping to prevent thereby any attempt of the Normans to in- 



54 DECLINE OF ANGLO-SAXON POWER. [1042 

Yade England in behalf of the sons of JEthelred, who had an 
hereditary claim to the throne. 

59. Danish Influence in England. — At the end of Cnut's rule 
of twenty years Danish influence had made itself permanently 
felt in England. The Danish rule had brought a new and 
hardier element into English life, for the Danes were stronger, 
freer, and more adventurous than the Anglo-Saxons of Cnut's 
day. Indeed, their institutions, law, and customs resembled 
those of the Anglo-Saxons of the ninth and tenth centuries, 
though the ties of blood and kindred were much less marked. 
Small Danish freeholders were still numerous in the northeast 
at the close of the eleventh century, though in the south such 
Danes as were to be found there had come very largely under 
the control of powerful lords. 

Cnut promoted new industries and introduced a new coinage 
of marks and ores instead of pounds and shillings. London 
became, in a sense, a Scandinavian port, and commerce with 
Flanders, Normandy, France, Germany, and the Baltic began 
to increase. The Danes were traders, and the union of Nor- 
way, Denmark, and England and the close connection of 
England with the Continent were favorable to commerce and 
navigation. Twenty years of prosperity gave a great impetus 
to the boroughs (burghs), particularly those of the coasts and 
rivers, and London, Chester, and Bristol grew rapidly in im- 
portance. 

But commercial prosperity did not make up for the political 
weakness of Cnut's empire. Before 1035 Scotland and Nor- 
way had broken away and Cnut seemed unable to hold the 
different parts together. Under his incompetent sons, Harold 
and Harthacnut, the empire ceased to exist, and even England 
wished to throw off the Danish rule. With the death of 
Harthacnut in 1042, the witan recognized as king, Edward, 
the son of the exiled ^thelred and Emma of Normandy. 

60. Edward the Confessor. — England, which at this time 
needed the firm hand and vigorous policy of a strong guide 
and leader, now fell to the lot of one of the weakest of the 



1053] HAROLD. 55 

English line. Saintly, Edward the Confessor may have been ; 
but he was far from competent to rule. During the first 
nine years of his twenty years' reign he was controlled by 
Godwine, earl of Wessex, who became the power behind the 
throne. He gave to the earl the chief management of the 
kingdom, made the earl's daughter his queen, and placed a 
number of the earl's sons in positions of prominence, so that 
the house of Godwine seemed supreme. 

But this harmony between the king and the great earl was 
not destined to last. Edward had been brought up a Norman, 
and at his accession to the throne there came with him to 
England not only Korman customs and speech, but also Nor- 
man favorites, whom he put into places of influence and 
prominence. Many quarrels ensued and the house of Godwine 
was exiled. In 1052 the earl returned and triumphed over the 
Norman favorites. At his death, in 1053, his son Harold suc- 
ceeded to the earldom and became for fourteen years the real 
ruler of England. King Edward was but a figure-head. 

61. Harold. — Harold tried to unite English, Normans, and 
Danes by a policy of conciliation, and to strengthen the 
frontiers of the kingdom by a policy of war. He admitted 
many Normans into England and allowed them to reside there, 
even giving them places about the person of the king, but 
refusing to grant them political power. Few of Norman 
blood became earls or bishops. To demonstrate his ability as 
a warrior and to guard the kingdom from invasion he under- 
took, and caused others to undertake, campaigns of consider- 
able importance against Scotland and Wales. By these means 
the frontiers on the north and west were rendered more secure. 

In the meantime within the kingdom important changes had 
taken place in the control of the four great earldoms. Harold 
was earl of the West Saxons, and King Edward had given 
Northumbria to Harold's brother Tostig. Both East Anglia 
and Mercia came under the rule of Eadwine of Mercia. In 
1065 the Northumbrian Danes rose against Tostig, who had 
proved a brutal and tactless ruler, and expelled him from his 



56 DECLINE OF ANGLO-SAXON POWER. [1060 

earldom. His place was given to a brother of Eadwine. Thus 
three of the largest portions of England — Mercia, Northumbria, 
and East Anglia — were under the rule of earls, rivals of Harold, 
while his own brother, Tostig, was an outlaw, ready to take 
up arms against him should the opportunity offer. At this 
juncture, January, 1066, Edward the Confessor died, and 
Harold, the strongest candidate, though not the legitimate 
heir to the throne, was chosen by the witan as king. 

62. England in i o66. — At this time England was in a condi- 
tion bordering on anarchy. There existed no central authority 
powerful enough to bind together the different parts of the 
country. The earls were exercising independent powers : they 
had practically made their earldoms hereditary; and each 
within his territory controlled the army, made war on his own 
account, received the revenues, and to some extent managed the 
church. The Mercians, Northumbrians, and East Anglians 
were jealous of the West Saxons and resented their leadership, 
and there was no true national unity in the land. 

63. Beginnings of Feudalism. — In different parts of the country, 
particularly in the south, a new relationship, as yet social rather 
than political in character, called feudalism, was beginning to 
appear. Edward the Confessor had weakened his royal authority 
by granting to great ecclesiastical lords the right to try offences 
committed within their territories, and had freed them from the 
control of the royal officers. Churches were loaning portions 
of land to lay lords to hold for a fixed time in return for pro- 
tection or payrtient of money. Some of these great lords, both 
ecclesiastical and lay, were controlling the hundred courts and 
were themselves receiving all the fines from those courts. 

Meanwhile men of humbler station had continued to seek the 
protection of great lords and to take the oaths of homage and 
fealty, which bound each one to serve and defend his lord. 
Sometimes these men, who generally possessed small portions 
of lands in the vills, pledged only their personal attendance and 
service and kept their lands free from the lord's control ; some- 
times, when very evil days came upon them, they were compelled 



1066] BEGINNINGS OF FEUDALISM, 57 

to place their lands as well as themselves in the hands of a 
lord, for the lord alone could furnish the food, seed, and cattle 
that they needed. In this case the freeman became a tenant of 
the lord, and owed not only personal service, but labor and pay- 
ments, also. On the ecclesiastical estates this change in the 
condition of the old freemen had gone on more rapidly than 
elsewhere, so that many villagers were already bound to work 
for their lord and to pay dues, and could not leave the land 
they cultivated. 

But a great variety of custom everywhere prevailed ; many 
men were free to choose their lords as they pleased, and no 
central body exercised control over the local courts or looked 
after local government. These conditions, combined with the 
growing power of great families and local lords, made England 
liable to rebellion and anarchy ; they made desirable, even at 
great cost and misery, the coming of a stronger people, whose 
leaders were to exhibit a genius for organization that the Anglo- 
Saxons had never possessed. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE NORMAN CONQUEST- 

64. Normandy. — The Normans were the descendants of those 
old Norsemen who plundered the Frankish coasts in the ninth 
and tenth centuries. In 912, in order that Frankish territory 
might be protected against these raids of the Norsemen, 
the king of the Franks gave to one of them, Eollo the Dane, a 
district on the north coast. It was called Normandy after the 
Norse inhabitants. Kollo and his people accepted Christianity 
and Frankish civilization. Under him and his successors order 
was maintained, trade developed, and Normandy became one 
of the most prosperous feudal states of western Europe. 

65. "William the Conqueror. — William, the seventh duke of 
Normandy, was one of the greatest and most ambitious of the 
feudal lords of France. He had made Normandy a united 
feudal duchy and had himself become a lord more mighty even 
than his overlord, the French king. No sooner had Harold 
been elected king of England than William asserted his right to 
the English throne, on three grounds : first, because as cousin 
to the childless Edward the Confessor he had a better hereditary 
title to the throne than had Harold, who was only Edward's 
brother-in-law ; secondly, because on the occasion of a visit to 
England in 1051, Edward had promised him the inheritance ; 
and finally, because Harold himself, when wrecked on the coast 
of Normandy some years before, had sworn to help him win 
the crown. 

Very important for the Norman duke was the consent of the 
pope, who deemed Harold an enemy because he desired an 
independent English church, a perjurer because he had broken 
an oath sworn over sacred relics, and a usurper because he had 
been consecrated without the pope's consent by the archbishop 

58 



1066] 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 



59 



of York. So the pope blessed the expedition and transformed 
the feudal adventure into a holy crusade. 








Rochet's Statue of William I. 
At Ealaise in France, William's birthplace. William was the seventh 
duke of Normandy ; the first six are represented about the base of the 
statue. 



60 THE NOEMAN CONQUEST. - [1066 

Harold, though acting on the defensive, was weak because 
of the rivalry among the English earls and the want of military- 
unity and common purpose among the people. Then, too, he 
had shown a lack of foresight in his dealings with others. He 
had not kept up the friendly alliance his father had formed 
with Elanders, which was hostile to William and might at this 
juncture have checked the expedition; he had offended the 
pope, whose support was of the greatest aid to William ; and, 
perhaps most important of all, he had quarrelled with his 
brother Tostig, who deemed Harold responsible for his out- 
lawry. 

66. Battle of Stamford Bridge. — Confident of success, Harold 
was waiting for the attack of the Normans, when he suddenly 
learned that Tostig had invaded England from the north. 
With him came Harold Hardrada, boldest of the Viking kings. 
Eager to meet this danger before William should land in the 
south, Harold hastened northward, took the enemy by surprise 
at Stamford Bridge, near York, and defeated them in a brilliant 
battle, on September 25, 1066. Among the slain were Tostig 
and Harold Hardrada. 

Scarcely was the battle won, when word came that the Nor- 
mans had landed on the coast of Kent. Immediately Harold, 
with his huscarls,^ made forced marches southward, bidding the 
northern earls follow with the men of their earldoms ; but the 
latter traitorously lagged behind and gave no aid. 

67. Battle of Hastings. — Thus Harold was forced to depend 
on his huscarls and the hastily raised levies from Wessex. 
Determined to act on the defensive, he took up his position on 
a small hill a few miles from Hastings, near which the Normans 
had established their camp. On October 14, 1066, the famous 
battle was fought. The Normans were formed in a triple line 
of feudal knights on horseback, with heavy-armed infantry 
before them, and archers and crossbowmen in the front line. 
The English under Harold consisted only of the huscarls, clad 

1 Mercenaries attached to the king's household. 



1066] 



THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY. 



61 




HIC : EST : WADARD : HIC : COQUITUR : CARO ET HIC : MINISTRA- 

VERUNT MINISTRI 

Here is Wadard. Here meat is cooked and here the servants serve. 




[HIC : FRANCI PUGNANT ET CECI]DERUNT QUI ERANT : CUM 

HAROLDO :• HIC [HAROLD \- REX I- INTERFECTUS : EST] 

Here the French Jight and those who were with Harold fell. 

Here King Harold was slain. 

The Bayeux Tapestry is a band of linen two hundred and thirty feet long 
by twenty inches wide, embroidered with scenes illustrating the Norman Con- 
quest. The figures are worked with worsted of eight different colors. The 
Tapestry was probably completed during the life of William the Conqueror. 

The portions reproduced above contain two important incidents of the inva- 
sion. The first shows a party of soldiers foraging for breakfast. The soldiers 
have driven the English from their square wooden houses and are bringing in 
sheep, oxen, and pigs. Of the mounted warrior, Wadard, little else is known. 
He carries a lasso and is interested in a footman who is bringing in a small 
pack horse. The next scene shows servants cooking the food seized. Two of 
them are suspending a large pot on forked sticks over a fire. Behind them on 
a shelf are fowls prepared for broiling. A baker is taking cakes from a stove. 

The second portion contains a picture of the last stage of the battle, when 
the huscarls defend the brow of the hill. In the centre is one of the common 
soldiers. In the margin Norman archers maybe seen. The armor of Normans 
and Saxons was practically the same, formed of flat rings sewed on a founda- 
tion of leather or cloth. The helmet was of steel, with a nose guard ; the 
shield, kite-shaped; the weapons of the Normans were bows and arrows, 
lances, swords, and battle-axes ; those of the Saxons, battle-axes and swords. 



62 THE NORMAN CONQUEST. [1067 

in helmets and armor, and bearing two-handed Danish axes. 
They formed a front line, protected, as they stood shoulder 
to shoulder, by a wall formed of their joined shields. Behind 
the huscarls were the light-armed levies of thanes and ceorls, 
carrying spears, sharpened stakes, and rude implements of 
agriculture ; and on the crown of the hill was raised the stand- 
ard of Harold, the golden dragon of Wessex. Against this 
solid mass William hurled his forces in vain. For six hours 
the battle raged, until at last, having failed to break the Eng- 
lish ranks by charges of horsemen and showers of arrows, the 
Normans ordered a feigned flight in order to draw the English 
from their position. The ruse succeeded. While the light- 
armed English levies were pursuing the retreating foe, a body 
of Norman horsemen thrust themselves between the pursuers 
and the huscarls on the hill. Fiercely fighting to the last, 
the huscarls held out till evening, when Harold fell, mortally 
wounded, and the great battle was over. The Normans were 
victorious at Hastings because they were better equipped and 
better disciplined than the English, who, though they knew 
how to fight, did not know how to manoeuvre ; and the victory 
is significant because in winning it the Normans displayed in 
military matters that same superiority which they were after- 
ward to show in government and law as well. 

68. Completion of Conquest. — Further resistance was useless. 
The earls of the north refused to come to the rescue, and with- 
out opposition William marched toward London. There the 
witan had hastily elected Edgar, grandson of Edmund Ironside, 
the last male descendant of the house of Alfred, and the 
northern earls supported him. But when the Normans reached 
London, Edgar and the earls submitted, and the witan chose 
William for king. On Christmas day, 1066, the Norman duke 
was crowned by the archbishop of York, and became the legally 
elected king of southern England. 

But what the south had done could not bind the north. 
William returned to Normandy in 1067, leaving the govern- 
ment in the hands of two regents. Roused by the excesses of 



1071] FEUDAL LAND SYSTEM. 63 

the Normans, those of the English still unconquered made one 
final attempt to drive out the invader. But there was no unity 
of plan or action. William returned from Normandy in De- 
cember, 1067, took up each contest in turn and won notable 
victories. This second conquest gave him the name of the 
Conqueror. Having subdued the English and harried the 
lands of the north, he crossed the Tweed and forced Malcolm 
of Scotland to become his vassal. He was then crowned a 
second time at York in 1069, as if he had become the king of 
a separate kingdom. By 1071 the last opposition was over- 
come, and the Normans were the rulers of England. 

69. Introduction of the Feudal Land System. — As fast as 
William conquered the territory, he confiscated the land and 
either took it himself or distributed it among his followers, 
who held it in feudal tenure ^ as vassals of the king. Thus 
for the complicated land system of the English was substituted 
a perfectly simple arrangement, according to which all land was 
held feudally of the king. This land law, which was applied 
first in the south, where great manors,^ or estates, had already 



^The usual form of feudal tenure was by military service. The vassal to 
whom the king granted land owed for it the service of a certain number of 
knights, or fighting men. The tenure was called, therefore, tenure by 
knights' service. In this form of tenure the vassal owed also certain payments 
of money called aids, and the lord had the right to control the inheritance of 
the land, the mai-riage and guardianship of the widow and children of his vas- 
sal. This system, as William applied it, was new to England, but was well 
developed in Normandy. William, therefore, brought to England a form of 
landholding and military service with which he was familiar at home. Still 
there was much in Anglo-Saxon feudalism that resembled the later feudalism, 
except that it was more undeveloped, involving simply the general idea of 
service less military and less definite. 

2 A manor was not so much a stretch of territory as a right of jurisdiction 
which a lord possessed over people who cultivated the soil or engaged in in- 
dustry. Frequently, these people lived in a single vill, and in that case the 
manor and the vill were territorially the same, but sometimes the lord's au- 
thority covered men in other vills. We cannot draw a diagram of a manor as 
we can of a town. The nearest that we can come to it is to say that a manor 
contained a manor house, a church, one or more vills with open fields, and 
the lands of certain men elsewhere, over whom the lord of the manor had 
jurisdiction. 



64 THE NORMAN CONQUEST. [1086 

begun to form before the conquest, -was extended to the north, 
which was less ready to receive it because of the great variety 
of small lands there, held by freemen.^ In the end, no part of 
England escaped feudalism in some form. 

70. Features of Feudal Tenure. — Three important features of 
this policy are to be noted : (1) Each great vassal was obliged 
to render to the king for the land that was granted him the 
service of a certain number of knights, and to lead them him- 
self to war. The whole number thus furnished amounted to 
about five thousand knights, who composed the army of the 
king. (2) The lands thus held were scattered over all England, 
so that the great vassals had many small estates in different 
parts of England, but no very large amount in any one locality. 
This scattering of the vassal's lands, which was due not to any 
design of the Conqueror, but to the slowness of the conquest, 
saved England from one of the worst features of Continental 
feudalism. No man in England could become territorially 
powerful and independent, as had scores of great lords in 
France and Germany. The only portions of England that wete 
at all independent were the great earldoms of the north ; these 
border provinces, refusing to recognize the overlordship of 
either the Scottish or the English kings, were almost like in- 
dependent states. (3) English feudalism differed from that 
of the Continent in still another particular. In a great meet- 
ing held at Salisbury in 1086 William summoned all the land- 
holders and made them swear allegiance to him as chief lord and 
king. Thus he laid down the rule that every tenant of land 
in England, whosesoever vassal he might be, owed allegiance 
first to the king and then to his own lord, and that, therefore, 
no English vassal might follow his lord against his king. Thus, 
while William the Conqueror introduced into England an ad- 
vanced form of feudalism with a uniform land tenure and a 
regular knight service, he prevented feudalism in England 

iSome Englishmen probably still held land by express grant from William 
But they had to make heavy payments to the king for what they received. 



1086] WILLIAM'S GOVERNMENT. 65 

from developing its worst aspects, — the territorial indepen- 
dence of great lords, and private war. 

71. William's Government. — William established what the 
Anglo-Saxons had never had, — a strong central government. 
He was himself at the same time conqueror, king, and para- 
mount feudal lord, of whom all men held their lands. He was 



Up. ^ i>f]bif K'xS* p'jpjiiti 




A Portion of the Charter (in Anglo-Saxon) given 
BY William the Conqueror to the City of London. 

Translation : 

William, king, greets William, bishop, and Gosfrith, 
portreeve, and all the burghers within London, French 
and English, friendly. And I make known unto you 
that I will that ye two be worthy of all the laws that 
ye were worthy of in King Edward's day, and I will 
that each child be his father's heir after his father's day, 
and I will not suffer that any man do you any wrong. 
God give you health. 

absolute in authority, a very different king from Edward the 
Confessor, or Harold. The administration that he established 
was simple and centralized. When he was absent, he placed 
the government temporarily in the hands of a justiciar, who 
was always an ecclesiastic, that the office of justiciar might 
not become hereditary. William had also a chancellor, or 
secretary, who wrote letters, issued writs, and kept the royal 
seals ; and a treasurer, who received the royal revenue and was 
the guardian of the royal hoard of jewels and coins. This 
hoard was located first at Winchester — Alfred's capital — and 
afterward at Westminster, the new abbey church of Edward 
the Confessor, on the Thames, outside of London. 



66 THE NOEMAN CONQUEST. [1086 

William had also a council, called the " great council," which 
in composition was probably not unlike the old Anglo-Saxon 
witan. It was composed of the officers already mentioned, 
together with others of the royal household and certain earls 
and bishops whom the king desired to summon. Its duties 
were chiefly judicial, though it also acted as an advisory body 
to the king. It cannot be said to have limited his authority, 
for it never opposed him. 

72. Local Government. — William broke up the old earldoms, 
which had been a great danger to monarchy in Anglo-Saxon 
times, and reduced the office of earl to a merely honorary 
dignity. He gave chief power into the hands of the sheriff, 
whose position increased enormously in importance. The 
sheriff collected the revenues, summoned the shire court and 
after the Conquest probably presided over it, and called to war the 
men of the shire, except the knights who were led by their lords. 

Though William in substituting the sheriff for the earl 
strengthened the central authority, in other respects he left 
local institutions much as they had been before. He retained 
the laws of Edward the Confessor, and preserved the courts of 
the shire and hundred. Though under the Normans and 
afterward, the shire court increased in importance, the hun- 
dred and the hundred court still remained the centre of local 
administration for the average freeholder. Here he obtained 
justice, joined with his neighbors in making up the amount of 
tax allotted to the hundred, joined with them also in render- 
ing the required military service, went to inquests (see p. 68), 
joined in the chase after thieves and other criminals, and did 
other things necessary to keep the peace. Many of the hun- 
dreds had fallen into private hands, and the freeholders there 
served the lord and his court instead of the hundred, though 
the local life was much the same in either case. 

73. "William's Sources of Revenue. — Like the old Anglo- 
Saxon kings, William received revenues from the old royal 
lands, to which were now added the returns from the many 
manors which he had confiscated. Hq had also a share of the 



1086] WILLIAM'S SOURCES OF REVENUE. 67 

fines and fees from the shire and hundred courts, not under 
private control, and from his feudal vassals he received the 
customary feudal payments. He received dues from all mar- 
kets and fairs held; for the right to grant a market or fair was 
a royal privilege that the merchants had to pay for. He re- 
ceived all the fines and fees imposed by the great council, and 
it was to his financial advantage that as many cases as pos- 
sible should be brought before the council. Consequently. 




[^ 9» iffliiukjrai \^tuf \fCf{ipji-,<m<iiiu>. R^..£ 



Teoutt?; 






A Portion of Domesday Book. 
Translation of the Latin : 

King William holds Windsor in demesne. King Edward held it. 
There are twenty liides. There is land for [ ]. On the demesne 
is one plough ; and there are twenty-two villeins and two bordars 
[cottagers] with ten ploughs. There is one serf and a fishery 
worth six shillings and eight pence ; and forty acres of meadow 
yielding fifty swine for pannage (i.e. dues for feeding the swine). 
Other woodland is placed in enclosure (i. e. enclosed in the king's 
forest) . There are besides in the vill one hundred haws less five 
(i.e. ninety-five enclosures probably with houses). Of these, 
twenty-six are exempt from gafol (payments in kind or money) . 
From the others come thirty shillings. 

pleas of the crown, that is, cases specially reserved for the 
king or his court, largely increased under the Normans. 

William was a famous hunter, and made severe forest laws, 
breaches of which brought in a large revenue. Most valuable of 
all was the money received from the old Anglo-Saxon national 
land-tax, Danegeld, which William renewed. That the levy 



68 THE NORMAN CONQUEST. [1085 

miglit be fair and systematic, he caused 9, great survey of the 
kingdom to be made. This, the most famous of all William's 
acts, resulted in the drawing up of Domesday Book, the only 
record of its kind and one of the most important sources of in- 
formation for English history. 

74. Domesday Book. — In 1085 William sent out commis- 
sioners into the shires to get information upon which to base 
the levying of the tax. They were to go to each shire or 
county town and to summon before them the chief land- 
holders of the shire, the smaller landholders of the hundred, 
and villagers from each vill in the hundred, for the purpose 
of answering questions. This method of inquiry, introduced 
by the Normans, was called an inquest, and out of it, two cen- 
turies later, developed trial by jury. The commissioners asked 
by whom the lands were held, how many hides there were to 
be taxed, what lands (as, for example, some of the old crown 
lands) were exempt from taxation, how many villeins there 
were, how many cattle, how many ploughs, and the like. They 
made the inquiry hundred by hundred and vill by vill. 

When all had been finished and written down in Latin, the 
record was sent to the king at Westminster. The items were 
separated and set down not as originally by hundreds and 
vills, but under the names of the tenants-in-chief, who held 
the lands within each shire. The final form in which Domes- 
day Book has come down to us is not geographical, but feudal. 
It is a tax book, designed for the purpose of increasing the 
revenue of the king. But it is more. It is a witness to the con- 
tinued existence of the old Saxon local institutions, the shire, 
the hundred, and the vill, and to the presence of the new sys- 
tem of feudal tenures introduced by the Conqueror. 

75. William and the Church. — The Anglo-Saxon church, 
though recognizing the superior jurisdiction of the Holy See 
at Rome, had been accustomed to manage its own local affairs 
and had preserved intact its national character. William had 
come to England with the blessing of the pope, and was 
morally bound to bring the English church more directly 



1086] WILLIAM AND THE CHURCH. 69 

under the authority of the papacy. He began by removing 
the Anglo-Saxon bishops and replacing them with others from 
the Continent, trained in the ways of the Eoman church and 
devoted to pope and king. Lanfranc was made archbishop of 
Canterbury, and a few years later the archbishopric of York was 
made subordinate to that of Canterbury. By making Lanfranc 
the sole head of the English church, William strengthened the 
ecclesiastical unity of England. 

Lanfranc came to England ready to organize the church 
and to enforce many of the reforms which Dunstan had tried 
to introduce. He imposed celibacy upon the clergy, sub- 
stituted, whenever the opportunity arose, the regular clergy 
(the monks) for the secular clergy (the priests), and encour- 
aged the coming of monastic orders into England. Wishing 
to make the church independent of the state, he persuaded the 
king to issue an ordinance requiring that hereafter bishops and 
archdeacons, who had hitherto sat in the shire and hundred 
courts, should have courts of their own and should try ecclesi- 
astical cases not according to local custom, but according to the 
canon law, that is, the church law. From this time we have 
church courts or "courts Christian," which tried laymen for 
breaches of the church law and clerics for any offences, and we 
see the clergy becoming a distinct order by themselves. 

76. "William's Power over the Church. — But William was not 
willing that either church or pope should limit his own power 
as king of England and of Englishmen. He refused to do 
homage to G-regory VII. Though he continued the old Anglo- 
Saxon payment to Rome of a penny on every hearth (Peter's 
Pence), he forbade that any one in his kingdom should ac- 
knowledge a new pope or should receive any papal letters 
without his consent. He would not allow the English clergy 
in their convocation to decide anything unless he agreed to 
it, and he would not suffer the church to try publicly or to 
excommunicate any of his barons or officers without first refer- 
ring the matter to him. Thus, while he strengthened the papal 
authority, he kept it well under his control. 



70 THE NORMAN CONQUEST. [1066 

77. Results of the Norman Conquest. — In English history the 
Norman Conquest is equally important with that of the Anglo- 
Saxons. It introduced new ideas and practices in land tenure, 
military service, government and church organization. It 
established government in the hands of a powerful feudal 
aristocracy under the king, which held the land and drew from 
it their revenues ; it increased the central power of the king 
and his council, and it centred justice, taxation, and the mili- 
tary system more and more in the hands of the landowning 
classes. A separation began between the upper and lower 
classes, which was to continue for four centuries, and to effect 
a complete change in the condition of the mass of the people. 

The introduction of feudal tenures, the rise of great manorial 
estates, the heavy taxes which the Normans imposed, decreased 
the number of small, independent holdings, and brought many 
free villages under the control of Norman lords. More small 
freemen than ever were forced to perform services, to make 
payments to their lords, to be bound to the soil, — that is, to 
become what we know as villeins. For the next two or three 
centuries feudalism was at its height in England. 

At the same time the Norman Conquest was of lasting bene- 
fit to England. It brought the land, the people, and the church 
out of isolation into contact with Continental life. It intro- 
duced symmetry, simplicity, and consolidation into English 
government and law. It brought about the decline of the old 
tribal conditions, broke up the unity of the old kindred, led to 
the abolition of the blood-feuds, wergeld, and the tribal system 
of justice and punishment, and prepared the way for a higher 
order of government, law, and industry, and for greater sta- 
bility and strength in national affairs. 



ENGLAND 

and the 

FRENCH POSSESSIONS 




CHAPTER VII. 

FEUDAL ENGLAND. 

78. William II. — • William the Conqueror, at his death in 
1087, left Normandy to his eldest son, Robert. To his second 
son, William, called Rufus (the Red), he left the English 
crown ; and to his third son, Henry, he left a hoard of money. 
William Rufus, fearing an uprising of the Norman barons in 
favor of Robert, threw himself on the support of the English, 
and, with the aid of Lanfranc, obtained a legal election in 1087. 
In return, he promised better laws and lighter taxes. But 
after Lanfranc' s death in 1089, he forgot his coronation oath 
and gave way to his evil passions. He employed every device 
to obtain money, exercising mercilessly his feudal rights. He 
also kept vacant the see of Canterbury, and took the revenues 
himself for four years. Finally, in 1093, falling sick, he re- 
pented, and appointed as archbishop the saintly Anselm. But 
recovering, he again forgot his oath, and continued his evil 
course. The burden of his feudal exactions fell chiefly upon 
the holders of great estates, who were in the main of Norman 
stock. But at the same time his tampering with the manage- 
ment of the local courts, the buying and selling of justice, and 
the pardoning of criminals for a bribe caused great hardship 
among the masses of the people, the native English. The 
great landholders, seeking from their tenantry reimbursement 
for their losses, increased the popular distress. No one 
mourned when, in 1100, William was killed while hunting in 
the New Forest, which his father had created. 

79. Henry I. — In order to forestall the claims of his elder 
brother, Robert, Henry hastened to London and demanded the 
crown. After some opposition, he was elected king, August 5, 

71 



72 



FEUDAL ENGLAND. 



[1100 



1100. Then, in order to strengthen his position, he recalled 
Anselm, who had fled from William Kufus in 1097. At the 

same time he promised 
to respect the laws of 
Edward the Confes- 
sor, and most impor- 
tant of all, issued a 
charter of liberties 
correcting the evil 
practices of William 
Kufus. In this char- 
ter he bound himself 
to respect the freedom 
of the church and to 
leave church revenues 
unmolested during a 
vacancy , to exact rea- 
sonable and just feudal 
dues; to establish 
peace and the laws of 
Edward in the king- 
dom; and he de- 
manded that his bar- 
ons should treat their 
vassals as he was 
treating them. In order to bind the English more closely to 
him, he married Edyth, whom the Normans called Matilda, 
daughter of Malcolm of Scotland, the youngest and last of the 
house of Alfred the Great. 

80. Henry's Troubles with Normandy. — During the first nine 
years of his reign, Henry had great trouble because of Nor- 
mandy. His elder brother, Eobert, returned in 1100 from the 
First Crusade, and was welcomed by a considerable party of 
Norman lords, who supported his claim to the English throne. 
Louis VI of France aided Eobert, hoping to weaken the Nor- 
man house by encouraging war between its leading members. 




From an migraving. 



Henry I. 



1102-1107] THE INVESTITURE STRUGGLE. . 73 

Henry was aided not only by his Norman followers, but by 
the English as well. With a bribe of three thousand marks a 
year he bought off Eobert. He crossed the channel in 1104 
a,nd subdued "almost all the castles and the chief men" in the 
land of Normandy. Finally, when Robert renewed the conflict, 
Henry won the battle of Tinchebrai (1106) and thus became 
master of Normandy. The struggle, in which the English had 
cooperated with their king, bound more closely Norman king 
and English people, and promoted that imity which was to 
make of two peoples one nation. 

81. The Investiture Struggle. — During Henry's reign a 
new issue arose. The ecclesiastical lords, bishops and abbots, 
were great landowners, and as such were feudal vassals of the 
crown. For three centuries, on the Continent and in England, 
the great overlords had been accustomed to invest these arch- 
bishops and bishops with the signs of their office, that is, to 
confer upon them not only their feudal lands, but also the ring 
and the staff, emblems of their spiritual power.^ Gregory VII, 
one of the greatest of the popes, determined to rid the church 
of this interference of the secular lords. During the reign of 
William E.ufus, Anselm had asserted the independence of the 
church, when he refused to receive the pallium, the spiritual 
badge of his -office, from the hands of the king. Because of 
the quarrel that followed, Anselm fled from England in 1097. 
After Henry's accession he returned, and renewed the struggle 
over the question of investiture with the ring and the staff. 
From 1102 to 1107 the archbishop refused to recognize the 
king's right of investiture, and twice was exiled from England 
because he would not do homage and receive investiture for 
his see. But Henry was involved in war with his brother 
Robert, and wanted the aid of Anselm and the English people : 
a compromise was reached; the king gave up the right of 

1 The ring was the signet or seal ring of the bishop, the staff the symbol of 
the bishop's authority over his flock. The archbishop received in addition 
from the pope iYt.e pallium, the chief badge of his authority, a band of white 
lamb's wool embroidered with black crosses, with two pendants attached- 



74 FEUDAL ENGLAND. [1135 

investiture with ring and staff, the spiritual symbols, and 
Anselm agreed that bishops should do homage to the king for 
the lands which they held, their temporal power. 

82. Henry's Administrative Changes. — The government under 
Henry was about the same as it had been under William the 
Conqueror. The justiciar became, however, a permanent offi- 
cer, and out of the g7~eat council a small council of barons was 
created for (1) financial and (2) judicial purposes. 1. When 
dealing with finances, this body took the name of the Eay 
chequer, and sat twice a year, in spring and autumn. 2. When 
rendering justice it was called the curia regis, or king's court. 
This court dealt only with exceptional matters, such as dis- 
putes between the great lords, and such pleas of the crown as 
were tried before the king, for the curia regis at this time 
followed the king wherever he went. At times the king sent 
one or more of the members of this smaller council into the 
counties to look after the revenues, and to hear cases which 
specially concerned the king. 

83. Stephen and Matilda. — In 1135 Henry died without a 
legitimate male heir to succeed him. In 1126 he had called 
his widowed daughter, Matilda, back to England and had 
secured her recognition by the barons as heir to the throne. 
Matilda, therefore, based her right to the throne on her descent 
and on the oaths sworn by the barons. Stephen of Blois, 
count of Boulogne, son of William the Conqueror's daughter, 
strenuously disputed this claim and on the death of Henry in 
1135 hastened to England. There the people and the barons, 
reluctant to see a woman on the throne of England, accepted 
him as king. Stephen was informally elected at London. 
Matilda in despair appealed to Rome, but the pope sent a 
letter to Stephen confirming him in the possession of the 
kingdom. Thus Stephen based his title to the throne upon 
election and coronation, and upon the consent of the pope. 
In return he confirmed the good laws and customs of his uncle 
and of Edward the Confessor, and in a second charter prom- 
ised to respect the liberty of the church. 



1138] 



WAR BETWEEN STEPHEN AND MATILDA. 



75 



84. War between Stephen and Matilda. — The struggle that 
followed between the two claimants to the throne is sometimes 
called the "nineteen 
years of anarchy." 
Stephen was not a 
strong man ; the great 
lords went from one 
side to the other as 
they pleased and were 
ready to follow the 
party that would offer 
them the greatest re- 
wards. Feudal an- 
archy broke loose. 
The building of cas- 
tles, which had begun 
with the Norman Con- 
quest, went on with 
great rapidity. The 
Anglo-Saxon Chron- 
icle pictures graphi- 
cally the misery of the 
land. Some men were 
beaten and tortured, others died of hunger ; towns were plun- 
dered and burnt, churches destroyed, monks and priests robbed. 
"The earth bare no corn . . . and it was openly said that 
Christ and his saints slept." Stephen did not keep his 
promises, discontent increased, and the cause of Matilda be- 
came the rallying point of the enemies of the king. Matilda's 
uncle, David, king of the Scots, espoused her cause and in- 
vaded England. He was defeated in the battle of the Stand- 
ard (1138), where Stephen's men drove back the Scots with 
great slaughter. Stephen, strengthened by this victory, strug- 
gled against the rapidly growing rebellion in the south, where 
one after another the Norman earls were rising against him. 
He was brave, but without resources, and his condition drove 




From an engraving. 
Stephen. 



76 FEUDAL ENGLAND. [1154 

him to desperation. He debased the, coinage, imported mer- 
cenaries, and raised up new earls to aid him. He also offended 
the clergy at the very moment when Matilda, arriving in Eng- 
land for the first time, placed herself at the head of her own 
cause. Stephen was defeated and captured at the battle of 
Lincoln in 1141, and Matilda was chosen " Lady of England " 
by the barons, April 7-8, 1141. They did not, however, crown 
her queen. 

But Matilda's triumph was brief. Stephen's queen raised 
reenforcements in Kent and effected by exchange the release 
of the king. Matilda had offended her followers by her 
haughtiness and could gain no new support. So, despairing of 
further success, she withdrew from the struggle and retired to 
the Continent. Stephen reigned for the next five years in 
comparative peace. 

85. The Angevins. — But Matilda's cause was not lost. 
Henry, her son by her second husband, Geoffrey of Anjou, 
renewed the struggle for his mother, but met with little success. 
After his return to France in 1150, his power vastly increased. 
He was invested with Normandy by his mother in 1151, and 
soon after the death of his father, received Anjou, Touraine, 
and Maine, feudal states in France. In 1152 he married 
Eleanor of Aquitaine, whom Louis VII of France had foolishly 
divorced, and received as her dowry the great duchy of Acqui- 
taine. Thus he was the most powerful lord in France, when 
in 1153 he prepared to take final issue with Stephen in a strug- 
gle for the English crown. 

86. The Treaty of "Wallingford. — Henry landed in England 
in June, 1153. Nearly eighteen years had passed since the 
struggle began and a new generation of men had arisen. Nor- 
mans and English were becoming fused into one people, and a 
strong desire for peace everywhere prevailed. Eustace, the 
son of Stephen, died in 1153, and for Stephen the loss of his 
heir changed the whole aspect of the struggle. At Wallingford 
negotiations were begun and a treaty was finally signed in 
1154. According to its terms Stephen adopted Henry as his 



1154] RESULTS OF STEPHEN'S REIGN. 77 

heir, and Henry in his turn recognized the right of Stephen to 
reign peacefully as long as he lived. This compact was kept. 
Stephen remained king of England till his death in October, 
1154, and Henry was crowned at London the December follow- 
ing. 

87. Results of Stephen's Reign. — Though outwardly a time of 
war and chaos, the reign of Stephen was in some respects 
marked by a steady development. The two peoples, Normans 
and English, suffering the same miseries and fighting the same 
battles, were becoming one. The crown and the feudal barons 
emerged from the conflict weakened rather than strengthened; 
the church alone gained. Taking advantage of the disorgani- 
zation of the state, it sprang at once into prominence, establish- 
ing its independence and advancing its claims to control the 
election of the king and to interfere in temporal affairs. The 
ecclesiastical courts extended their jurisdiction, monasticism 
flourished, and learning increased. The beginnings of the 
University of Oxford can be seen. The towns, engaging in 
commerce and thereby growing in wealth and power, were be- 
coming places of refuge for the oppressed. Most important of 
all, the evils of an unrestrained feudalism, the rise to prominence 
of new and more lawless feudal lords,. and the steady descent 
of the villager class into a deeper serfdom taught men severe 
lessons and made them more eager to accept the rule of a strong 
king, despotic though he might be. On this account the Eng- 
lish welcomed the coming of Henry II. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

HENRY II. — JOHN : STRUGGLE OP MONARCHY 
WITH THE CHURCH AND FEUDALISM. 

88. Henry II. — Henry II was more than king of England: 
lie was feudal lord of half of France, and was connected, by 
blood or marriage, with the chief princes of Europe. During 
the thirty-five years of his reign he spent all together but thir- 
teen in England ; the centre of his activity was France, where 
he was maintaining his feudal claims. He was a man of un- 
bounded activity, a clear-headed statesman and law-giver, and 
an ambitious ruler. It is true he was rash and intemperate, 
but he chose excellent councillors and was always ready to 
accept advice. 

89. Henry restores Peace. — As soon as he was crowned Henry 
began to restore order and peace, as he had promised. He 
ordered all the illegal castles — erected without the king's per- 
mission — to be razed to the ground, and took steps to recover the 
royal estates that had been given away both by Matilda and 
Stephen in their attempt to gain followers. Then he turned 
his attention to strengthening the central government and to 
raising monarchy from its low estate. What England needed 
was a strong central power to create a common law for the 
land and to bring unity into its life and government. 

90. Henry's Administrative Measures. — Henry's frequent ab- 
sences from England, settling feudal difficulties in France, 
made necessary such changes in administration as would enable 
the government to go on without him. England was compara- 
tively small and compact, many of the dangerous feudal lords 
had been slain or had died, and most of the leading men sym- 
pathized with Henry in his determination to establish a strong 

78 



1154] THE SHERIFF. 79 

central goverument. The king selected laymen as his justiciars, 
and invested them with almost regal power. Under them the 
same officers existed as in the days of Henry I. The small 
board of barons, called the Exchequer when performing financial 
duties, and the hinges court (curia regis) when exercising judicial 
functions, continued their semi-annual meetings. But the t7'eas- 
urer of the Exchequer now became permanent, and under him 
was organized a staff of expert clerks, who did the routine work 
and remained at Westminster for a much longer time than did 
the barons. To this permanent board the sheriffs brought the 
revenues from each shire, which included the revenues from 
the royal estates, the proceeds from fines, the Danegeld when 
levied, and the money arising from the aids and incidental pay' 
ments of the feudal tenants, such as arose from inheritances, 
marriages, wardships, escheats, and alienations of the fief.^ 

91. The Sheriff. — Under Henry II the sheriff became the 
most important of those ofiicials in the kingdom that had to 
do with local administration. He was always appointed by the 
king and' was generally possessed of great estates within the 
district that he administered, and in some instances at least 



1 In addition to military service the vassal owed his lord certain aids and 
incidents : ] Feudal aids or payments on three special occasions, (a) when 
the lord was to be ransomed from captivity, (6) when his eldest son was 
knighted, and (c) when his eldest daughter was married for the first time. 2. 
There were five chief feudal incidents : (a) the relief was a payment made by 
the heir or new tenant on the death of the father or the former tenant; (6) 
wardship was the right of the lord to control the revenues of the fief during 
the minority (twenty-one for a male, fourteen for a female) of the heir, and this 
carried with it the further right to control the marriage of the heir ; (c) mar- 
riage was the right of the lord to control the marriage of the heiress, when there 
was no male heir, and at times this included the right to control the marriage 
of a widow ; {d) forfeiture or escheat was the right of a lord to take hack the 
fief if the vassal had no heir or had committed one of the grave crimes 
called felonies ; (e) alienation was the right of the lord to prevent alienation 
or the selling or giving away of a fief. Any of these rights could be sold by 
the lord to another if he liked or could be bought by the vassal on paying a 
fine. The reason why these rights existed is that the lord was dependent on his 
vassals for aid and support, and could not afford to let the fiefs pass in any 
way into other hands, particularly those of an enemy. 



80 HENRY n. [1154 

succeeded in making his office hereditary. As the special 
representative of the king and vested with great authority he 
became a powerful local autocrat, and because he abused his 
position in order to make profit for himself, he was probably 
the most feared and hated man in the shire. 

In order to place a check upon the sheriffs Henry continued 
his grandfather's policy of sending occasionally one or more of 
his barons of the king's court into the shires (p. 68). These 
barons (itinerant justices) were (1) to see that the sheriffs 
assessed the lands and collected the revenues justly, and (2) 
to hear such of the pleas of the crown as the king could not 
hear in his own court and would not allow to be settled in the 
local courts. Thus in matters of finance and justice the king 
was beginning to increase the power of the central authority. 
In so doing he was lessening the power obtained by the feudal 
lords during the anarchy of Stephen's reign. 

92. Scutage. — To the same end Henry encouraged a practice 
that had grown up, affecting the most important of the feudal 
obligations, the duty of military service. William the Con- 
querer had required of his chief tenants a certain number of 
knights for the feudal army. The tenants generally got these 
knights by letting out a portion of the land which they held 
of the king to sub-vassals, on condition that the latter follow 
them when required in the service of the king. This sub- 
letting of land was called subinfeudation, and was begun soon 
after the Conquest. 

But sometimes the great vassals were not able to meet in 
this way their obligations to the king, and had to hire extra 
knights to make up the number required of them. This prac- 
tice of hiring soldiers led many of the knights who held land 
of a tenant-in-chief on condition of military service, to offer a 
money payment, instead of their service, to the king. The 
money thus paid by the knight was called scutage (shield 
money, from scutum, a shield).' The king favored the payment 

1 Tenants-in-chief were never allowed to pay scutage. 



1162] HENRY'S QUARREL WITH THE CHURCH. 81 

of scutage by the knights because the feudal army could not 
be compelled to serve for more than forty days at a time and 
was always more or less unreliable. With money the king 
could hire paid knights, or he could use the scutage in any 
other way that he pleased.. 

93. Effect of Scutage. — The growth of the practice soon 
altered the character of the knights, who henceforth ceased to 
be soldiers and became landholders and farmers, devoting 
themselves to agriculture and to the affairs of the shire and 
shire court. Scutage continued to be levied at intervals for 
another century and a half as a tax on feudal lands. It helped 
to break down the feudal military system and led to the rise 
of a new class of landholders in the shire, the landed gentry, 
who played a very important part in English history as 
Tcnights of the shire. 

94. Henry's Quarrel with the Church: Thomas a Becket. — 
Henry was interrupted in his work of centralizing adminis- 
tration and justice by a famous quarrel with the church, which 
illustrates his determination to make the state supreme in 
ecclesiastical matters, also. 

From 1154 to 1163 he had met with no serious obstacles in 
the task of governing England, but in the latter year trouble 
arose with the church in the person of Thomas a Becket. 
When Henry came to the throne he had made Becket chancel- 
lor of England. In this position Becket had served his king 
loyally, even against the clergy themselves. His life had been 
luxurious, he had surrounded himself with courtiers, and en- 
tertained sumptuously. He was a minister after the king's 
own heart. 

In 1161 Henry wished to make Becket archbishop of 
Canterbury. Becket resisted, knowing that as archbishop he 
must serve not the king, but the pope, the head of the church. 
Henry persisted. In 1162 he forced Becket's election as arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, believing that he would find in him as 
faithful an ally as William I had found in Lanfranc. But he 
made a grievous mistake. No sooner had Becket taken the 



82 HENRY II. [1162 

oath of office than his whole life changed. He threw off pride 
and luxury, became humble and austere, and surrounded him- 
self with studious and pious ecclesiastics. He resigned his 
chancellorship and determined to defend at every point the 
entire independence of the clergy. The position of the church, 
due to its growth during Stephen's reign, was now one of 
great power, almost that of a state within a state. 

95. The Constitutions of Clarendon. — The conflict between 
the king and the church came when Henry undertook a new 
reform that touched the latter's privileges. William I had 
given the church separate ecclesiastical courts in which clerks ^ 
only could be tried. No matter if a clerk had been guilty of 
most grievous crimes, such as murder, he could not be tried in 
the civil courts. Too often gviilty clerks had gone free or 
suffered mild punishments. This abuse Henry determined to 
remedy by making clerks subject to the royal courts. But 
Becket answered that ecclesiastics ought to be exempt from 
all temporal justice, that the church was independent of the 
state. Henry, enraged at Becket's resistance, assembled a great 
council at the royal hunting seat of Clarendon, near Salisbury, 
and forced Becket and the bishops, for the sake of peace, to 
assent to a " recognition of some part of the customs, liberties, 
and dignities o:^ his ancestors." Then a commission was ap- 
pointed to draw up a record of these customs. The report of 
this committee is now known as the Constitutions of Clarendon. 

The principal points were: (1) that a clerk accused of crime 
should first be summoned before a temporal court and there be 
charged with his guilt, that he should then be tried, convicted, 
and degraded in an ecclesiastical court, and thus having be- 
come a layman, should be brought back to the temporal court 
and be given a layman's punishment, mutilation or death ; 
(2) that no one should leave the kingdom without the permis- 
sion of the king or without taking oath not to do anything to 



1 " Clerk " was the name for any ecclesiastic of this time — hishop, priest, 
or deacon. 



1170] BECKET'S EXILE AND DEATH. 83 

the injury of the king or the kingdom ; (3) that none of the 
king's tenants or ministers should be excommunicated or his 
lands placed under interdict^ without the consent of the king 
or his justiciar; (4) that an appeal in an ecclesiastical matter 
should be from the archbishop's court not to the pope, but to 
the king} 

Nearly all the clauses simply defined the relations of church 
and state as they had been before the days of Stephen. The 
quarrel between Henry and Becket was due to the fact that the 
former was standing for the customs of his ancestors, the latter 
for the new claims of the church. 

96. Becket's Exile and Death, — Becket, after long considera- 
tion, definitely refused to accept the constitutions. Henry, 
exceedingly angry, called a second council and summoned the 
archbishop to answer certain charges concerning his feudal 
obligations. Becket refused to appear, and judgment was 
given against him. When Henry pushed the matter farther 
and demanded an account of certain money in his possession 
when chancellor, Becket fled from England in disguise and 
entered into voluntary exile. The pope was engaged in a con- 
flict with the emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, and did not dare 
excommunicate Henry, whose daughter had married an ally of 
the pope. Therefore Becket fought the battle almost alone. 
But he fought well. He refused to institute bishops chosen 
since his departure, excommunicated the chief advisers of the 
king, encouraged Louis VII of France, with whom he had found 
refuge, to attack Henry's French possessions, and finally per- 
suaded the pope to threaten England with an interdict (1170). 

Henry, yielding in part, became reconciled with Becket, and 



1 Interdict deprived a certain territory, either the whole or a part of a 
kingdom, of church services, the sacraments, and the right of burial under the 
auspices of the priest. The extent and character of the punishment varied 
greatly. 

2 The constitutions declared that a consecrated church or cemetery, usually 
a sanctuary for a criminal, should not be used to protect goods forfeited to 
the king. 



84 



HENRY II. 



[1170 



the latter, after six years of exile, returned to England. But 
he refused to abandon his aggressive policy. He suspended 
the bishop of Durham and the archbishop of York, who had 
dared to crown Henry's son in his absence (1170). The bishops 
fled to Henry, who was in France, and told their tale. Henry 



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Canterbury Cathedral, from the North. 
It was from this side that Becket's slayers entered the cathedral. 

in angry despair cried out, " Is there no one among all the 
cowards whom I have nourished who will rid me of this miser- 
able clerk ? " Unwilling to act illegally, he summoned a coun- 
cil, which deemed Becket deserving of death. 

But the matter had already been taken out of his hands. 
Four knights, hearing the king's words, had sought out Becket 
at Canterbury and there murdered him, on the steps leading 
from the transept to the choir of the cathedral. This act raised 
Becket to the place of a martyr and turned the world against 



1170] EEVOLT OF THE BARONS. 85 

Henry. For centuries Becket was the most popular of the 
English saints, and thousands of persons each year made pil- 
grimages to his tomb at Canterbury. 

With the greatest difficulty, Henry turned aside the papal 
excommunication. He gave large sums to charity, annulled 
some of the provisions of Clarendon,^ and made a pilgrimage 
himself to Canterbury. 

97. Feudal Reaction against Henry. — The resistance of Becket 
was to find its counterpart in an attempt of the feudal lords to 
check the rapidly growing power of the king, and to recover 
the position they had had in the early years of Stephen's reign. 
The murder of Becket, which seemed to be only another act of 
royal despotism, deepened the anger of the English baronage, 
while the humiliation of the king seemed to offer a favorable 
opportunity for an expression of their discontent. Already 
aroused by the financial and judicial measures of Henry, they 
were still more incensed at this time by a further attack on 
their feudal prerogatives. In 1170, when Henry returned to 
England, he was greeted with so many complaints of the tyranny 
of the sheriffs that he deprived the majority of the barons of 
their positions as sheriffs and placed in their stead men of 
lower rank, who became regular officers of the crown. This 
" inquisition " of sheriffs not only reduced in importance the 
office itself, but it also broke down the local influence of many 
a wealthy lord who as sheriff had controlled his shire. 

98. Revolt of the Barons. — The aggrieved barons found a 
leader in the king's own household. His eldest son, Henry, 
dissatisfied with the estates and the authority allowed him by 
his father, and aided by his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, 
headed a revolt, the signal for a great uprising of all who had 
a grievance against the king. French lords and English 



1 Out of Henry's concessions in 1176 came what was to be known later as 
" benefit of clergy," the privilege by which not only the clergy, but any one 
able to read, could commit crime without being tried under the ordinary 
criminal law. This practice was very much modified after the fifteenth cen- 
tury, but it was not done away with entirely until the nineteenth century. 



86 HENRY II. [1172 

barons, headed by young Henry and the king of France, 
formed a menacing coalition. Even the king of Scots joined 
the league, and with the bishop of Durham, lord of a powerful 
northern bishopric, was preparing to invade England. 

Never did Henry's activity and generalship display itself to 
better advantage, and never did the support given by the Eng- 
lish people stand him in better stead. The weakness of the 
opposition lay in its lack of unity. Henry was able to meet 
each movement separately. Crossing to France in 1172, he 
forced Louis VII to a peace, and added to his other possessions 
there the country of Brittany. Meanwhile, his justiciars had 
checked the uprising in northern England so that on his re- 
turn he completely subdued the revolt and forced the king of 
the Scots to acknowledge himself the vassal of the English 
king. Other lords surrendered to Henry their castles, which 
he dismantled, and thus brought to an end the last serious 
feudal uprising that was to take place in England. 

99. Henry's Work for Justice, the Army, and the Finances. — 
With the feudal uprising suppressed, Henry at once prepared 
to go on with his great work of improving local methods of 
justice and of extending the royal authority from Westminster 
out into the shires, thus substituting for the many feudal cus- 
toms a common law in England. In 1166, during his trouble 
with Becket, he had found time to issue an ordinance called 
the Assize^ of Clarendon. By this assize he had instructed 
his sheriffs, in every case of murder, robbery, and theft, to 
summon the men of the hundred and of the vills near which 
the crime occurred, to make inquiry of them regarding it, and 
to arrest the man whom the villagers accused. This was the 
first application of the Norman inquest to matters of justice. 



1 Assize meant at first a sitting, that is, an assembly or court; then the 
name was given to the enactments of the court, as in this case ; then to the 
cases to which such enactments or ordinances applied. The modern term, 
the assizes, for the court held before a circuit judge in England, is simply a 
survival from the time when these judges heard cases provided for in these 
old enactments. 



1176] HENRY'S WORK FOR JUSTICE. 87 

and did away with the old method of calling in oath-helpers, 
compurgators (p. 48). The accused was then taken by the 
sheriff before the justice, whom the king sent from Westminster 
to hear pleas of the crown in the shires. 

In 1176 by the Assize of Northampton the king revised 
the Assize of Clarendon, omitting all reference to the sheriffs 
and enlarging and defining the powers of the justices of the 
king, who henceforth became the chief representatives of royal 
justice in the local districts. These itinerant justices, travelling 
on circuit through the shires, were to take cognizance of forg- 
ery and arson, as well as of murder and robbery, and were to 
make inquiry through twelve of the most lawful knights of the 
hundred, or if knights could not be obtained, through twelve 
qualified freemen of the hundred and four men from each vill, 
regarding the circumstances of such crimes. 

In the instructions to the itinerant justices there appears a 
new officer, — crowner, or coroner, — to be elected in the county 
court from among the knights of the county, whose business it 
was to take care of all persons guilty of offences against the king, 
that is, to guard the pleas of the crown, and to produce them 
when the justices came into the county. It would appear that 
sometimes the coroners themselves tried cases of this character. 
The appointment of the coroner was distinctly a blow at the 
judicial power of the sheriff. 

By the same assize the king went beyond the cases known 
as the pleas of the crown and offered to protect in the royal 
courts any man's freehold property when it was in danger of 
seizure by that man's lord. He not only instructed his jus- 
tices to make inquiry, through twelve qualified men, regarding 
such cases, but he said that any one who applied might have 
such a case tried in the king's courts. This extension of the 
king's justice weakened the feudal lord's control over the 
property of his free tenants ; for after this, as far as the pos- 
session or ownership of property went, every free tenant looked 
for justice not to the lord of whom he held his land, but to the 
king's court. 



88 HENRY II. [1188 

100. Assize of Arms : the Militia. — Henry also reconstructed 
the military system. He had already weakened the feudal 
army by encouraging the practice of scutage ; and as he did 
not like to be dependent on hired soldiers, he increased and 
made more efficient the old popular levies, demanding in the 
Assize of Arms (1181) that every freeman should be armed and 
ready for military service. Knights, burghers, and freeholders 
were to have always at the service of the king arms and armor 
according to their wealth.^ The itinerant justices were to 
summon local juries to determine the property of each free- 
man and to apportion the arms to be provided. Thus Henry 
created a new fighting force for England. 

In 1188 a financial step of great moment was taken. The 
summons for the Third Crusade had gone forth, and England 
endeavored to raise money by a special imposition called the 
Saladin tithe. Hitherto the only general tax, Danegeld, had 
been laid on land, but now for the first time a tax was laid on 
revenues and movable property. In determining the value of 
such property, each man was allowed to state the amount that 
he possessed ; but in case his word was doubted, a jury of 
neighbors was called in to testify. 

In all these particulars — judicial, military, and financial — 
the king was creating a uniform law for England, was extend- 
ing the power of his own officials, and was undermining the 
strength of the feudal lords. He was doing more ; he was 
bringing the central and local institutions more closely together, 
and, what is extremely important, was laying the foundation of 
the common law^ of England. But for the work of Henry and 
his justices England might have had for her law the Eoman 
law, as have most of the European countries to-day, or else the 



1 No one except a freeman could sefve in the army. Jews were forbidden 
to have arms, and ecclesiastics were exempted. 

2 Common laio must be distinguished ivovo. statute law, that is, laws passed 
by a law-making body. There was, of course, no statute law at this time. It 
must be distinguished also from local customs or customary law, from Roman 
law, and from the law of the church courts, eccle^iasticOil law. 



1189] HENRY'S LAST YEARS. 89 

conflicting mass of customary law of the shires, half tribal, 
half feudal, which had prevailed in England up to this time. 
By the use of the inquest, in all cases where it was possible, 
he was increasing the efficiency of local administration and 
uniting more firmly crown and people. Through the rules 
laid down by the justices of his court, with some help from the 
Roman law and much material from the customary law, he 
was constructing a definite, uniform system of English law, 
common to the whole country 

101. Henry and Ireland. — In Henry's reign began the attempt 
of the English to conquer Ireland, and to bring the half-civilized 
Celtic tribes under the authority of the English king. The 
right to rule Ireland had been granted to Henry by Pope 
Hadrian IV, the only English pope, on the ground that all 
islands belonged to the jurisdiction of the papacy, a striking 
instance of the claims of the church at this time. Henry him- 
self went to Ireland, but accomplished little, the only result 
being the establishment of a claim to the island, that was not 
made good for four centuries. 

102. Henry's Last Years. — The last years of this great king 
were for him a time of perplexity and sorrow, and the trouble 
came not from England or Ireland, but from Erance. The 
French kings were doing exactly what Henry was doing — 
building up a strong monarchy and warring against the feudal 
lords. The king of England was the lord of half of Erance ; 
and therefore the French kings were always willing to take the 
side of the enemies of the English king, whoever they might 
be. Louis VII had aided Becket, and now Philip II (Augustus) 
took advantage of the discontent of Henry's sons to urge them 
to revolt against their father. He first aided the eldest son, 
Henry (p. 85), and after the latter's death, conspiring with 
Richard and John, stirred up war in which Henry II suffered 
defeat. 

In the midst of his troubles Henry died, July, 1189. He 
was a great king, victor in the struggle with feudalism in his 
own kingdom, but when, as a feudal lord himself, he sought 



90 STRUGGLE OF MONAECHY. [1189-1199 

to maintain his position in the face of the rising French mon- 
archy he was defeated. 

— 103. Richard Coeur de Lion (1189-1199). — On the death of 
Henry II, Richard was declared king, witliout opposition, and 
at his coronation promised to defend the church, to maintain 
the rights of his people, to eradicate bad laws, and to uphold 
good ones. But these promises were to have no fulfilment at 
his hands. He was a brave man, but a bad king. His heart 
was in the crusade for the rescue of Jerusalem, and he gave 
no thought to the needs of the English. 

His reign of ten years was spent almost entirely out of 
England, either in the Holy Land, on the Third Crusade, in 
captivity in Germany, or in France warring against Philip 
Augustus. He was a warrior and knight, not a statesman or a 
king. Bold and impetuous, loving great deeds and romantic 
adventures, he was the typical crusader of his day, the knight- 
errant, the hero of song and story. Reckless with his own 
life, he was cruel in his treatment of others ; and outspoken in 
his hates, he made enemies who were constantly intriguing 
against him. It was fortunate for Richard that his father had 
established a firm administration, for Richard paid no attention 
to the government, and it is well for England that he did not, 
for he had none of his father's genius and could only have made 
matters worse, had he attempted to rule. Immediately after 
his coronation, Richard began to raise money for a crusade. 

104. The Crusades. — Pilgrimages were a leading feature of 
mediaeval life. They were made to shrines and holy places, the 
holiest of all being the Sepulchre of Christ in Jerusalem in 
Palestine. The steady stream of pilgrims which had visited 
the Holy Land was stopped in 1076, when the Turks captured 
Jerusalem, the Holy City. Returning pilgrims told of their 
persecution by the Turks, and at the call of the pope an expedi- 
tion was planned to free the Holy Land. 

The Crusades thus started lasted in one form or another for 
two centuries. Feudal lords and their men, peasants, even 
women and children, aroused by the advance of the Turks and 



1189-1199] 



THE CRUSADES. 



91 



restless within the narrow boundaries of their feudal life, eagerly 
seized the opportunity to go to the rescue of the Holy Land. 
Thousands, by land and water, journeyed 
to the East, passing through countries 
they had never heard of and coming into 
contact with new peoples, whose culture 
was far higher than their own. The 
effect of these expeditions was indirectly 
very beneficial. Though the Holy Land 
was eventually lost, the Turk was checked 
and the Eastern Empire preserved for 
two centuries longer. Men's ideas were 
broadened, their knowledge increased, 
trade and commerce were vastly extended, 
new articles of dress and food introduced, 
methods of navigation improved, systems 
of banking and credit established, and in 
general, manufacturing and industry 
gained at the expense of agriculture. 
To the influence of the Crusades may 
be traced some of the causes for the 
growth of towns and the rise of the in- 
dustrial classes. 

The Eirst Crusade (1095-1099) resulted in the capture of 
J erusalem. The Second Crusade (1147-1149) against the Turks, 
who were again encroaching upon the Holy Land, was from a 
military standpoint unsuccessful. The Third Crusade (1189- 
1192), due to the capture of Jerusalem by the Turks, was led by 
Frederick Barbarossa, Philip Augustus, and Richard Cceur de 
Lion and proved to be the most famous and romantic of them 
all. To raise money for this expedition Richard declared offices 
vacant and put them up for sale to the highest bidder. He 
agreed, with the pope's consent, that those who desired should 
remain at home, provided they paid for the privilege. He sold 
charters to the towns, and for ten thousand marks released 
William the Lion of Scotland from his oath of fealty (p. 86). 




A Crusader. 
Showing the chain 
armor and the cross 
on the helmet. 



92 STRUGGLE OF MONARCHY. [1199 

Having raised a goodly sum of money, he embarked on the 
crusade, December 11, 1189. During the ensuing three years 
Europe rang with his exploits, while England under his justiciar 
was governed with a firm hand. 

105. Richard's Ransom. — In 1193, on his way home from 
Jerusalem, which he had failed to take, Richard was captured 
and handed over to the emperor Henry VI, son of Frederick 
Barbarossa. This capture was a great event for the empferor, 
since Eichard had been the ally of the emperor's enemies in 
Sicily and Germany. In April the news of the capture reached 
England, and strenuous efforts were made to raise the money 
that the emperor demanded for the ransom of the king. The 
justiciar called upon every one, lay or clerical, to give a fourth 
part of his income for the year and a like portion of his per- 
sonal property. From each knight was demanded twenty 
shillings as the regular aid for the ransom of a lord. . Monas- 
teries and churches were not exempt : the Cistercians, the 
great sheep-raising monks, gave up a whole year's shearing of 
wool, and the churches surrendered all their plate and jewels. 
The total sum finally raised was 150,000 marks (a mark = 
13s. 4(i.), an amount said to be twice as large as the whole 
revenue of the kingdom; and Richard was released in 1194. 
The news was not welcome to Philip Augustus, who informed 
John, Richard's brother, that "he had better look out, for the 
devil was loose." 

106. Richard and Philip Augustus. — When Richard returned 
in 1194, he spent only two months in England, selling of&ces, 
receiving gifts, and imposing fines and taxes in order to raise 
money for carrying on his war with France and for making 
further payments on his ransom. Thus equipped, he continued 
his struggle with Philip Augustus, defeating him in 1194 and 
driving the French out of Normandy, Touraine, and Maine. 
The French king could make no headway against him, and 
was compelled to bide his time in patience. The opportunity 
came, when in 1199 Richard was killed on a freebooting expe- 
dition, and John became king of England. 



1202] KING JOHN. 93 

The reign of Richard is constitutionally important because 
it shows the strength of the system established by Henry II, 
which continued to work with great efficiency, even though 
there was no king in England. It is also significant in that 
it shows how the baronage and the people were learning to act 
unitedly against a king's oppressive financial policy. 

107. King John. — John is by common repute the worst king 
that ever ruled in England. The favorite son of his father, 
who had sought to find for his son a kingdom in Ireland, he 
had deserted Henry at the critical moment and gone over to 
the side of Philip. He proved equally thankless to Richard, 
who had given him control over five shires in England to com- 
pensate him for having been left without fiefs at his father's 
death. -^ His character was base, his temperament sensual, and 
his motives of the lowest sort. He had neither the ability of 
his father nor the heroism of his brother, and though he was 
energetic and resourceful, he lacked sagacity and gave way to 
passionate impulses. A man of this type was no match for the 
patient, cautious, and persistent Philip Augustus. 

108. Loss of the French Lands. — Philip was but waiting to 
drive the Angevins out of France. Aiding the younger Henry 
against Richard, Richard and John against their father, and 
John against Richard, he was now ready to wage bitter war 
with John himself, and to support the caxise of Arthur, who 
claimed the English throne as son of Geoffrey, John's elder 
brother, who had died. John, obtaining a divorce from his 
English wife, Isabel of Gloucester, married Isabel of Angoy.- 
Igme, already betrothed to the son of the Count of la Marche, 
his own vassal. The offended family at once appealed to 
Philip, who, as John's superior feudal lord in France, seized 
this opportunity to obtain a legal sanction for an attack on 
the Angevin lands. Philip summoned John to answer for his 
conduct before a court of feudal lords. John delayed, promised, 
and again delayed. In 1202 the court, in accordance with 

1 From this circumstance John received the name of Lackland. 



94 



STRUGGLE OF MONARCHY. 



[15^05 



feudal law, declared him guilty of felony, which meant forfeit- 
ure of his fiefs in France. Philip now took up the cause of 

Arthur, John's 
nephew. A war be- 
tween John and 
Arthur resulted in 
the capture of the 
latter in 1202. At 
this juncture Arthur 
disappears from his- 
tory, probably slain 
by John's own hand. 
The murder of 
Arthur gave Philip 
the desired oppor- 
tunity of .carrying 
out the judgment of 
the feudal court of 
1202. He seized 
Normandy, Anjou, 
Maine, and Tou- 
raine, and added 
these fiefs to the 
French kingdom. 
Though John made 
a desperate effort to 
recover his lands, the 
Angevin possessions 
were practically lost 
to the English kings. 
' 109. John and the 
Church. — John now 
went rapidly from 
bad to worse. His 
best councillors had died: his mother, the energetic queen 
Eleanor, in 1204, and Archbishop Hubert Walter in 1205. De- 




From an engraving. 
King John. 



1209] ATTEMPT TO EECOVER FRENCH LANDS. 95 

prived of their wise and restraining influence, John forced 
a quarrel with the church, with which his relations had thus 
far been amicable. The trouble concerned a successor to Arch- 
bishop Hubert Walter. John claimed the right, which cer- 
tainly had been exercised by his predecessors, of naming the 
archbishop. But the bishops of the province of Canterbury 
asserted that the right was theirs. In a quandary. Innocent 
III appointed his own candidate, Stephen Langton. Langton 
was an English cardinal residing at Eome, an able and learned 
ecclesiastic. He was consecrated in June, 1207. 

John refused to receive or to recognize the new archbishop, 
and the issue between the pope and the king was sharply de- 
fined. John confiscated the estates of the archbishop, and of 
many of the bishops who supported Langton. Innocent re- 
plied, placing England under an interdict. Churches were 
closed; the sacraments of marriage and the Eucharist were 
forbidden; extreme unction, burials, and baptisms were per- 
formed only in private. Eor five years the king remained 
obstinate. In 1209 Innocent excommunicated John, but the 
king answered by seizing the estates of the bishops who pub- 
lished the bull of excommunication. In 1212 Innocent de- 
posed John and formed a coalition, with Philip Augustus as 
its willing head, to undertake a crusade for the purpose of 
driving John out of England. Threatened by an uprising of 
the Welsh and Scots, and terrified by a prophecy that he would 
cease to be king by Ascension Day, John yielded. He gave 
his kingdom to the pope, and received it back as a vassal of 
the Holy See, on the condition that he pay one thousand 
marks a year, receive Langton, and reinstate all deposed 
, bishops. 

This humiliating act reconciled John with the church, but 
it only deepened the growing opposition of the English people 
and barons to the king. 

110. John's Attempt to recover his French Lands. — Recon- 
ciled with the church, John now determined to take revenge 
on Philip, his greatest enemy, and, if possible, recover his 



96 STRUGGLE OF MONARCHY. [1214 

lands in France. He joined a league of Philip's enemies, who 
fought against Philip at Bouvines, July 27, 1214, one of the 
most important battles in the history of Prance, England, and 
Germany. Philip was victorious, and returned to Paris with 
the great task of establishing French monarchy accomplished. 
John, though not actually present at the battle, realized that 
he was hopelessly defeated, and gave up all further attempts 
to win back his Norman and Angevin territory. 

111. John and the Barons. — England was on the verge of 
civil war. Hitherto the people had sided with the king against 
the feudal lords. But Henry II had broken up the old feudal 
opposition, and a new baronage had arisen, keenly alive to its 
rights as a class, but desiring good government for the king- 
dom. Monarchy was making remarkable strides, and was 
outgrowing feudalism. Particularly in justice and finance it 
was making demands that the feudal organization of society 
could not meet, and the feudal lords deemed the heavy 
exactions of Richard and John an encroachment upon their 
privileges. In fact, monarchy was becoming dangerously 
powerful; under John it seemed to be absolute and uncon- 
trolled. The king's personal character, his unbridled tyranny, 
hastened the inevitable revolt, and gave unity to the baronial 
cause. 

Even before the battle of Bouvines the barons of the north 
had refused to serve out of England, and had refused also to 
pay scutage. At a council held at St. Albans the same year 
(1213), the justiciar declared in the king's name that the laws 
of Henry I, which John had promised to observe, should be 
put in force. Three weeks later, the archbishop Stephen 
Langton, presented the very charter of Henry I as the basis 
of the barons' demands. 

The enthusiasm roused by these meetings turned to confi- 
dent determination after John's defeat at Bouvines the next 
year. Immediately the archbishop and the barons drew up 
the "articles of the barons," a definite statement of their de- 
mands, and presented it to the king. John in hot passion 



1215] THE GREAT CHARTER. 97 

refused to receive it. Then an army numbering over two 
thousand knights, called the Army of God and Holy Church, 
accompanied by the citizens of London, marched against him. 
Seeing that church, baronage, and burghers were prepared to 
gain their demands by force, and deserted by all save the 
mercenaries he had brought from France, John, angry but 
helpless, was obliged to yield. At Kunnymede, on the Thames, 
June 15, 1216, he signed Magna Carta, the great charter of 
English liberties. 

112. The Great Charter. — Magna Carta differs from the 
charters of Henry I and Stephen in that it was forced by the 
church and the baronage from the king against his will. It 
contains a definite agreement on the part of the king to re- 
spect the independence of the church, the feudal law of the 
barons, and the interests of boroughs and even of villeins. It 
embodies all the most important practices and privileges of 
clergy, barons, burghers, merchants, and villeins that had been 
obtained in one way or another since the Norman Conquest. 
It bound the king to observe these privileges and to keep the 
laiv. Thus it checked the growth of absolute monarchy and 
marked the beginning of a monarchy that was limited in its 
power and beginning to be constitutional. But Magna Carta 
contains nothing new. Later ideas of taxation, trial by jury, 
and the like may be read into it, but they are not to be found 
there. Though the welfare of all classes is touched upon, yet 
the larger portion of the charter relates to the privileges of 
the feudal lords ; for, as must never be forgotten, the England 
of Magna Carta is feudal England, and the document itself is a 
feudal document. 

By its provisions, first of all the_.efe2icc&_waS;-.i^-^^^ and 

its rights and privileges were to be unimpaired. 

In the second place it defined in exact terms feudal customs. 
It regulated matters of wardship, heirship, widowhood, and 
marriage, and fixed the amount of feudal dues. More impor- 
tant still, it said that no scutage or aid should be levied save 
by the council of the realm, and that on three occasions only 




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1215] THE GREAT CHARTER. 99 

should a lord ask for aids from his vassal ; namely, when his 
eldest son was to be knighted, when his own person was to be 
ransomed from captivity, and when his eldest daughter was to be 
married for the first time (p. 79, note). The barons in fram- 
ing the charter fully respected the rights of the king, and at 
the same time promised their own sub-vassals the same rights 
that they demanded for themselves. 

In the third place, Magna Carta guarded the rights of the 
boroughs, especially London, and guaranteed to them their 
liberties and free customs. The Norman and Angevin kings, 
when in need of money, had sold to the boroughs of England 
charters which placed them above and outside of feudal control, 
and the kings knew that the rise of the cities meant the 
weakening of feudalism. 

In the fourth place. Magna Carta promised security to the 
merchants; protected the property of freeholders; and said 
that even a villein, who legally had no right to his own property, 
should not lose his oxen and ploughs, however heavy a fine 
might be imposed upon him. 

Lastly, Magna Carta contained certain general clauses, the 
most famous of all, although their importance is easily ex- 
aggerated. These clauses said that no freeman should be im- 
prisoned or exiled or lose his land save by the lawful judgment 
of those of his own rank or by the law of the land. This privi- 
lege meant that the barons were not to be judged by any one of 
feudal rank lower than themselves. The charter also declares 
that justice shall not be sold, denied, or delayed, but this great 
legal principle was at that time only as valuable as the barons 
and people were able to make it. 

Very important are the clauses that tell us of administration 
and law. These clauses affected, (1) the great council, (2) the 
curia regis or king's court, (3) the itinerant justices, and (4) the 
sheriffs and coroners. 

Whenever the king wished advice and council in assessing 
scutages or levying an unusual aid, he was to summon his 
greater lords to the council by a letter addressed personally 



100 STRUGGLE OF MONARCHY. [121& 

to each one. He was to summon the lesser lords, too, but by 
means of a general letter sent to the sheriff. All these lords or 
barons were the king's tenants-in-chief, so that the body thus 
called was strictly a feudal council. Probably the lesser lords 
seldom attended^ for travelling was troublesome and expensive. 

The king's court or curia regis (p. 74) was breaking into two 
parts: one to follow the king, as he moved about; the other, 
which was to deal with common pleas and not with pleas of the 
crown, to stay at Westminster. This separation was not made 
complete, however, till the time of Edward I (p. 117). 

The work of the itinerant justices must have been very 
successful, for Magna Carta required them to go on circuit four 
times a year; two years later the time was reduced to once a 
year. The justices were to protect the lands of freeholders 
against the encroachment of the lords, as Henry II had already 
begun to do (p. 87), by seeing that no freeholder lost the land 
he held except through testimony given to the justices in a 
formal inquiry. 

Lastly, Magna Carta marks the end of the sheriff's greatness 
by definitely saying that neither sheriffs nor coroners should 
try any of the pleas of the crown. This limitation meant that 
hereafter both sheriff and coroner were to be of local impor- 
tance only. 

113. John's Attempt to revoke the Charter. — John had no 
intention of keeping his promises. On his appeal Pope Inno- 
cent relieved him of his oath, excommunicated the barons and 
Stephen Langton, and in a special bull declared the charter 
illegal. John with unexpected vigor began war with the 
barons. He recovered the north and the centre, while the 
barons held London and the southeast. The latter, fearing 
defeat at the hands of John and his mercenaries, turned to the 
king of Prance and offered the crown to Louis, the son of 
Philip Augustus and afterward Louis VIII. Louis crossed 
to England in May, 1216, and supported by the barons and the 
city of London, began the conquest of the kingdom. John's 
death in October saved England from civil war and brought 



1216] EESULT OF JOHN'S REIGN. 101 

unexpected relief. The English, barons began at once to desert 
the Erench pretender and to support the legitimate heir to 
the throne, John's son, Henry, a lad only nine years old. On 
October 28 Henry was crowned at Gloucester, as Henry III, 
and a week later confirmed a revised text of Magna Carta. 
This act rendered hopeless the cause of Louis, who, after a 
defeat at Lincoln in April, 1217, gave up the struggle, and 
in November renounced all claims to the crovra. In 1217 
Henry III confirmed the charter a second time, and with 
the second coronation in 1220 at the hand of Stephen Langton, 
the civil war caused by John's tyranny came to an end. 
The king and people were once more apparently working in 
harmony. 

114. Result of John's Reign. — The reign of John is charac- 
terized by two momentous events : the loss of Normandy (see 
Map, p. 78) and the signing of Magna Carta. Each event had 
a decided influence upon the development of national unity 
and the constitutional government in England. 

The first forced the king and the barons to give up their 
feudal ambitions in France and to turn their attention to 
England. The second limited the power which the king could 
exercise and brought to an end the movement which threatened 
to make the will of the king absolute in the government of 
England. The barons were selfish in trying to obtain again 
all their old feudal privileges, but they acted for England's 
good in laying down the principle that the king must obey 
the law. From this time forward the people of England clung 
to the great charter because it expressed this idea. They 
referred to it when afterward they tried to obtain a share in 
government and to limit the powers which the king claimed 
were his own. Magna Carta is the first of many documents 
to which the English people have adhered with great tenacity, 
because they represented victories which some part of the 
English people have won at one time or another in their effort 
to share with monarchy the control of the government. 



CHAPTER IX. 

NATIONAL GROWTH AND RISE OF PARLIAMENT. 

115. Henry III. — Henry III was not a national king in any 
sense of the word. He had a very exalted idea of his royal 
position, was frivolous and extravagant, loved pomp and cere- 
mony, and surrounded himself with selfish favorities. He was 
pious in a mediaeval way ; but he yielded a too ready obedience 
to the pope, and was too willing to sacrifice the interests of the 
English to the advancement of the mediaeval papacy. He spent 
money freely for churches, but he destroyed the good effects of 
his generosity by filling church offices with favorites, and using 
church revenues for furthering his own and the pope's Con- 
tinental projects. He injured the cause of national unity, for 
he listened only to the advice of foreigners and of those hostile 
to the best interests of the English people. During his long 
reign of fifty-six years he succeeded in turning every class 
against him. 

116. Continental Relations. — Henry was far more interested 
in the Continent than in England, and was willing to use his 
kingdom and its wealth to make prominent his position abroad. 
This is shown in three ways. 

In the first place, he desired to recover his lost fiefs in France. 
To that end he undertook three Continental expeditions, with 
the result that in 1259 he renounced absolutely his claims to 
the greater part of the Angevin fiefs in France, and received in 
return from Louis IX (St. Louis), Guienne and Gascony. (See 
Map, p. 78.) These lands, situated in southwestern France, 
remained the only English possessions in France till the peace 
of Bretigny, 1360. 

In the second place, Henry was connected by blood or mar- 
riage with many of the great families in Europe. He himself 

102 



1227] COMING OF THE FOEEIGNERS. 103 

and his brother Eichard were related by marriage to powerful 
feudal houses in France ; while his two sisters married respec- 
tively the king of Scotland and the emperor of the Holy Eoman 
Empire. His eldest son, Edward, married a princess of Castile. 
All these foreign connections were to have a most disastrous 
effect upon Henry's government at home. 

In the third place, Henry was, by virtue of John's submis- 
sion to the pope, a vassal of the Eoman See. This position 
not only increased his intimacy with Eome, but also laid 
England open to excessive papal exactions. 

117. Henry's Minority. — From 1220 to 1227 government 
was in the hands of one of the strongest men of his day, the 
justiciar Hubert de Burgh, He ruled in the main wisely and 
well, and during these years the national party was in control. 
Hubert resisted the papal claims upon England and drove out 
the papal legates. He attacked the foreigners who refused to 
obey the law of the land as shaped by Magna Carta, and drove 
them, too, out of England. He compelled Henry in 1225 to 
confirm Magna Carta for the third time, giving the charter the 
final form in which it was to be embodied in the laws of the land. 

118. Coming of the Foreigners. — In 1227 Henry declared 
himself of age, and dismissing Hubert de Burgh made the 
foreigner Peter des Eoches justiciar in his place. An era of 
foreign influence and misgovernment began. Swarms of aliens, 
relatives of the king or his wife, flocked to England, attracted 
by the prospect of preferment or wealth. Henry made his 
wife's uncle archbishop of Canterbury, another uncle bishop 
of Hereford; scores of other aliens received offices of state, 
positions of trust, wardships of castles, and the like. The 
avarice of these foreigners exceeded all bounds. They sapped 
the country of its wealth, abused their inferiors, and through 
justices and sheriffs, plundered London, oppressed the Jews, 
despoiled the tenantry on their estates. Henry shared in the 
infamous work ; he revoked old privileges that they might be 
bought back, sold charters, made levies on the monasteries, 
and enforced forest laws with exasperating rigor. The amount 



104 EISE OF PAELIAMENT. [1224 

of money thus raised was enormous, but it was spent outside 
of England, and the king's treasury was always empty. 

119. Demands of the Pope. — At the same time the popes, as 
heads of the church and overlords of England, were compelling 
clergy and people to submit to grievous exactions. The 
mediaeval church demanded for itself universal authority, 
declared that kings and jjrinces held their thrones at the will 
of the pope, and that the temporal power was ordained of God 
to be subject to the spiritual. Innocent III was almost the 
only pope that had made good these claims, but for a century 
his successors asserted them. Innocent had concerned himself 
with temporal matters in nearly every state in Europe, and 
both he and his successors looked on England as especially 
under their control on account of John's oath of fealty. Henry 
had confirmed this oath, and in so doing had laid England 
open to papal interference. 

This interference took two forms: the demand for money, 
and the exercise of the right to fill English ecclesiastical 
positions with foreigners, chiefly Italians. Year by year 
heavier sums were demanded, taxes were levied, and church 
estates plundered. Against the will of the church in England 
Italians were forced into bishoprics and other benefices. Many 
of these foreigners were illiterate and ignorant, of irreligious 
lives and character, greedy and unscrupulous. The church 
became impoverished, and religious life sank to a low state of 
efficiency. 

120. The Coming of the Friars. — While Henry was pursu- 
ing foreign schemes, welcoming aliens and foreign prelates to 
England and spending extravagantly the wealth of the king- 
dom, other forces were working for England's betterment. 

Chief of these was the work of the friars. In 1220 the 
Dominicans^ had come to England; in 1224 the Franciscans.^ 

1 The Dominicans, or Black Friars, so called because of their black robe, 
were founded in 1215 by St. Dominic, a powerful preacher of southern France. 
Their chief aim was to combat heresy by personal preaching and appeal. 

2 The Franciscans, or Gray Friars, wore gray robes. They were founded 



1264] LEAKNING AND THE UNIVERSITIES. 105 

The former were called the Friars Preachers, the latter the 
Friars Minor, or Minorites. These men applied themselves at 
once to the great task of raising the religious life of England. 
Under a vow of poverty they labored among the people of the 
towns, — notably London and Oxford, — preaching the Chris- 
tian faith, caring for the sick, and bringing hope and comfort 
to the poor and afflicted. Thus they stood in striking contrast 
to the higher clergy, who in their thirst for preferment and 
wealth were neglecting the spiritual needs of the masses. The 
friars produced Eoger Bacon ; ^ they supported the only great 
and worthy churchman of this period, Robert Grosseteste, 
bishop of Lincoln, who was almost alone among the great prel- 
ates in his opposition to the policy of king and pope. Grosse- 
teste stands in English annals as the enemy of misgovernment, 
the upholder of national unity and independence. 

121. Learning and the Universities. — Many of the friars 
were learned men as well as preachers, and aroused a wide- 
spread interest by their work as lecturers and preachers in the 
convents and other places. The thirteenth century was a time 
when important advances were made in mediaeval learning 
and literature. Students on the Continent were crowding to 
centres where great leaders were lecturing on philosophy, logic, 
law, medicine, and theology, and in England a beginning was 
made at Oxford and Cambridge. At first students gathered 
about a master in his private house, but in 1264 Walter of 
Merton founded the first college, Merton College at Oxford, 
and his example was followed by others, until there were four 
colleges at Oxford in the thirteenth century and nine in the 

by a noble character of the Middle Ages, St. Francis of Assisi, in Italy, as an 
order of Begging Friars, who were under the vows of poverty, chastity, and 
obedience. The Friars were not monks, did not live in a monastery, or submit 
to a rule. They moved freely among the people and ministered to their 
wants. 

1 He is thought to have invented gunpowder and the compass ; he foresaw 
the use of steam and speculated about reaching China by crossing the Atlantic. 
He lived a century too soon to influence his followers, but is winning more 
and more recognition from the scholars of to-day. 



106 



RISE OF PARLIAMENT. 



[1264 



fourteenth. At first the college was a place for study, not for 
residence, and so it remained until the period of the Stuarts. 
Though scholarship was mediaeval in scope, literatiire was 




Frora a photograph,. 
Salisbury Cathedral. 

This cathedral is a splendid example of early English architecture ; there 
is scarcely a trace of foreign influence in the building. The spire is the 
loftiest and most beautiful in England. 



"beginning to show many changes, and in the writing of his- 
tory, of epic and religious poetry, and of romances a high degree 
of thought, imagination, and form was displayed. 



1258] PROVISIONS OP OXFORD. 107 

122. Cathedral Building. — An outward sign of the great 
religious fervor which characterized the thirteenth century in 
England and the Continent is seen in the great cathedrals* 
which were begun or remodelled in the reign of Henry III. 
There were many priests and monks called " the chapter," 
placed under a dean or prior to assist the bishop in administer- 
ing the affairs of the cathedral and the diocese. All these men 
helped in building these wonderful churches, and their homes 
were clustered about the cathedrals, adding to their pictur- 
esqueness and beauty. 

123. Resistance of the Barons. — So grievous had become the 
king's abuses and so dominant the influence of foreigners and 
papacy that finally the barons determined to resist, and Simon 
de Montfdrt appeared as their leader. Simon had been a Cru- 
sader, a governor of Gascony, was intimate with Robert 
Grosseteste, and was as eager to reform the state as the great 
bishop had been to reform the church. When, therefore, in 
the spring of 1258, the discontent of the baronage and people 
reached its height, Simon de Montfort found himself forced 
forward as the leader of the popular cause. In April, at a 
meeting of the great council, or "parliament," the barons de- 
manded the appointment of twenty-four of the wisest men of 
England to advise the king, to bring about a general change in 
the royal officials, and to erect a government that should care 
for the good of the people. Henry yielded, and in June the 
" parliament " again met, this time at Oxford, to draw up a list 
of reforms. 

124. Provisions of Oxford. — The "parliament" at Oxford, 
commonly called the Mad Parliament, was a body composed 
only of the barons and clergy. It began by demanding that 

lA form of the new Gothic architecture, called the Early English or 
Lancet-pointed, was introduced from France — a form lighter and more deli- 
cate than the heavy old Norman style. Many cathedrals begun in the Nor- 
man style were continued in the Early English ; hut the Cathedral of Salis- 
bury (1220-1260) , begun and completed, with the exception of the tower, in 
about forty years, is a perfect specimen of one style, the Early English ; and 
Wells Cathedral (1220-1244) is another beautiful example of the same style. 



108 RISE OF PARLIAMENT. [1264 

all aliens should leave England. The barons forced the king 
to agree to this demand and then brought forward their scheme 
for a reform in government, a kind of paper constitution, 
known as the Provisions of Oxford. A permanent council of 
bishops and nobles was chosen to govern with the king. This 
council was to appoint the great officers of the kingdom, and 
to meet three times a year in February, June, and October. 
This government lasted from 1258 to 1263 and met regularly 
three times a year, but it was nothing but an oligarchy, a gov- 
ernment by a few, and was too clumsy to be efficient. 

The king and his supporters, growing weary of the barons' 
control, and taking advantage of the discord in the reform 
party, tried to break down the government. Henry obtained 
a bull from the pope, releasing him from his oath ; he removed 
the justiciar appointed by the barons, and defied the " provi- 
sions " by openly violating their conditions. Civil war was 
imminent, but finally in 1262 they referred the matter to the 
arbitration of Louis IX (St. Louis) of France, whose reputation 
for justice all acknowledged. In January, 1264, in the award 
or Mise of Amiens, Louis, who had exalted ideas of the duties 
of subjects to their king, decided against the reformers, and 
at one stroke undid all that the barons had accomplished since 
1258. The pope confirmed the verdict. 

125. The Barons' War. — The Mise of Amiens was received 
in England with indignation, for all feared a return of the rule 
of the foreigners. The citizens of London rose in revolt, im- 
prisoned the king's officers, and plundered the king's houses. 
Simon and the young earl of Gloucester were joined by 
Llewellyn, the Welsh prince, and other barons. But the king 
was far from weak. He was aided by his son Edward, by 
lords from the north, and by his foreign allies from the Con- 
tinent. In the war that followed Henry was surprised and 
defeated by Simon, Gloucester, and the Londoners at Lewes 
in Sussex on May 14, 1264. The victory put Simon in posses- 
sion of the machinery of government, and gave into his hands 
as a hostage Prince Edward, whom the defeat at Lewes had 



1265] KNIGHTS OF THE SHIRE IN PARLIAMENT. 109 

changed "from a reckless youth of promise into a sober, ca- 
pable man." For a year Simon ruled in the king's name. 

126. Simon's Government. — In June, 1264, Simon summoned 
a parliament composed not only of barons and clergy, but also 
of four knights from each shire. This assembly restored the 
government established by the Provisions of Oxford, with 
slight changes. During the months that followed, Simon's 
power was greatly strengthened by a threatened invasion of 
the Italians and others who had been driven out of England. 
The English of all parties responded at once to the call for an 
army of resistance, and so determined were they that the 
invaders agreed to submit all questions in dispute to a national 
assembly to be held in London in January, 1265. 

127. Knights of the Shire in Parliament. — The London par- 
liament of 1265 marks a great advance in the constitutional 
history of England. The old council of the king had been 
strictly a feudal assembly. At its meetings the people were 
not expected to be present; as far as they can be said to 
have been represented, they were represented by their lords. 
It was an important innovation, therefore, when, during 
Henry Ill's reign, knights of the shire began to be sum- 
moned to meet with the king and his council. Originally 
lowest in rank of the feudal lords, they were rapidly becom- 
ing a middle class of important landholders in the counties. 
Scutage had relieved them of military service, agriculture 
had become their dominant interest, and the county court the 
scene of their chief political activity. As prominent local 
gentry they had already been called upon by the king to take 
a conspicuous part in the royal administration, since the begin- 
ning of Henry Ill's reign they had been intrusted with the as- 
sessment and collection of the taxes levied by the king and his 
advisers. They had also been elected by the county court to 
serve as coroners, and so had become royal officers, whose duty 
it was, in part, to guard the pleas of the crown until the itin- 
erant justices should come into the county, to be present always 
at the court which the justices held, and to hand over the roll 



110 EISE OF PARLIAMENT. [1265 

of the cases that had to be tried. Thus the knights were 
already serving as royal agents in the shires, and it is not 
surprising that they should be summoned, as they were a 
great many times between 1260 and 1295, to come to London 
or elsewhere, when the king and his council sat. Burgesses, 
too, had been accustomed to go to Westminster to appear be- 
fore the barons of the council sitting as the Exchequer, for 
the purpose of bargaining with the crown regarding the money 
they were to pay. The boroughs frequently sought to reduce 
the borough payments or to obtain new charters with additional 
privileges. For this purpose they would send one of the bur- 
gesses to London, and thus the burgesses, as well as the knights, 
became familiar to the royal officials. 

128. The First Step in the Establishment of a House of Com- 
mons. • — ■ When in 1265 Simon, in the kiug's name, called an 
assembly to make terms with the invaders, he enlarged its 
membership beyond that of any royal council that had sat 
before. His chief supporters were among the burgesses and 
the knights and freeholders of the counties. After he had 
issued writs to the clergy and barons, as was always done in 
summoning a great council, he turned to his own allies and 
bade the sheriffs send up tivo knights from each shire, and the 
burgesses two of their number from each borough, who with the 
others were to meet with the king. The response to the sum- 
mons was immediate and hearty. Five earls, eighteen barons, 
all the bishops who were not hostile to Simon, and a great 
number of knights and burgesses gathered at London. It was 
a partisan body, for it was composed only of Simon's followers ; 
but it was called for a partisan purpose, to uphold Simon's 
cause. There is no reason to believe that Simon intended 
such a body to be regularly or permanently summoned, or 
even to be summoned a second time. ISTevertheless, this gath- 
ering set a precedent for the future, and in this sense, perhaps, 
Simon may be called the "creator of the House of Commons." 

129. Simon's Defeat and Death. — The parliament of 1265 
came to an agreement with the king, who swore to observe the 



1274] EDWARD I. Ill 

Great Chaiter and the Provisions of Oxford. Simon was rec- 
ognized ruler of England and carried on tlie government for 
the king, whom he had kept prisoner since the battle of Lewes. 
But Prince Edward, escaping from custody, gathered his adher- 
ents and defeated Simon and the barons in the battle of Evesham, 
August 4, 1265, where Simon was slain. Thus died a man, who 
in spite of all his ambitions, imperiousness, and questionable 
methods did a great deal for England. He had checked the 
denationalizing policy of Henry III and taught England a good 
lesson. By one Englishman that lesson was well learned; for 
when Edward made his peace with the barons, it was Simon's 
principle of government that he promised to adopt. 

Erom 1266 to 1272 peace reigned, in the main, throughout 
England. Henry III, again in power, proclaimed an amnesty 
and confirmed the Great Charter. In 1268 Edward left England 
to join Louis IX, his uncle, on the last Crusade. Two adventu- 
rous years he spent in the East, and his fame as a Crusader 
spread over Europe. So well established was his place in 
the hearts of the English that in 1272, when Henry III 
died, he did not fear to delay for two years more his return 
to England. He was the first king in English history to reign 
before he was crowned. Proclaimed king in 1272, he did not 
arrive in his kingdom until 1274, when he was crowned. Then 
began the great work of one of the greatest of English kings. 

130. Edward I. — Edward was first of all an English 
king, the first of his line to devote himself mainly to the 
interests of England alone. Henry II had thought as much 
of his French possessions as of his English kingdom ; Rich- 
ard had considered England as a place where he could get 
money for his Crusade and feudal wars ; Henry III loved 
foreigners and subordinated England's welfare to that of the 
mediaeval church ; but Edward was a national king and made 
England the centre of his interests. He had been trained 
in a stern school of experience. He had seen all the disasters 
of bad government, and with a great man's instinct for 
compromise knew how to remedy abuses without arousing 



112 RISE OE PARLIAMENT. [1274 

permanent opposition among his people. He had love of 
power, and a masterfulness which in his early years gave him 
a reputation for cruelty ; but he became more temperate as he 
grew older, and while never lacking in bravery, showed a 
sympathetic, even an affectionate, nature. He was chaste, 
devout, frugal, and dignified, always just, faithful, and perse- 
vering, and in his motto, pactum serva (keep troth), he cherished 
an ideal which, though difficult of attainment, was unusual for 
the times. As lawgiver, organizer, and warrior Edward left an 
indelible impression upon English history. 

Three aspects of his work stand out most conspicuously : 
his legal and administrative reforms during the first thirteen 
years of his reign ; his summoning of the first complete parlia- 
ment in 1295; and his relations with Scotland and France, dur- 
ing his later years. 

131. Administrative and Legal Reforms. — Edward supple- 
mented the work of his ancestor, Henry II, and shaped in a 
legal mould the growing English constitution. He did what 
no English king had done before him, issued statutes,^ interfer- 
ing '' at countless points with the ordinary course of law 
between subject and subject." With him the statute law of 
England really begins, and no important class of the .people 
escaped the beneficent work of the king and his magistrates. 

Restriction of Feudal Privileges. — Scarcely had the king been 
crowned when he began a searching inquiry into the feudal 
conditions of England. Under Henry III the barons had been 
getting into their hands many feudal privileges or "fran- 
chises," as they were called. Edward determined to recover 
these privileges for the crown and in 1274 sent commissioners, 
much as William the Conqueror had done when he made Domes- 
day Book, to inquire in each and every hundred regarding these 

1 Before Edward First's day lawmaking was almost unknown, for men did 
not have the idea of frequently changing the law. Kings and their advisers 
issued charters and ordinances, but not statutes. Even the great statutes of 
Edward I were not drawn up or issued by any lawmaking body, but by the 
king and his council or such members of it as he cared to consult. 



1275] STATUTES OF WESTMINSTER. 113 

franchises, and to write down the results of the inquiry in a 
permanent record. This record still exists and is called the 
Hundred Eolls, that is, the Rolls of the Hundreds, standing 
next to Domesday Book as a record of mediaeval life. Having 
carefully weighed the information thus gathered, Edward held 
a great council in 1278, and declared that if the barons could 
not show that their franchises had been conferred by a king, 
the franchises would revert to the crown. He was as good as 
his word, and in the years that followed the great lords lost 
bit by bit the privileges that in the earlier years they had so 
imperiously exercised. 

In the same year (1278) Edward dealt feudalism another 
blow by completing the transformation of the knight fr6m a 
military vassal into an agricultural landholder. He compelled 
every person possessing land of the value of £20 a year to 
assume "the degree of a knight, with its costly ceremonies, 
or to pay a fine." This broke up the exclusive character of 
feudal society by creating a new body of knights, not feudal 
at all, but composed of the middle class landholders, whose 
position depended not upon military service or noble birth, but 
upon landed property. Such a step marks the transition from 
a period in which military and feudal interests are dominant 
to one characterized by economic achievements. 

First and Second Statutes of Westminster. — Edward's legal 
reforms have given him the title of the " English Justinian," 
not very aptly indeed, for Justinian codified old laws, while 
Edward made new ones. But it is amazing to see how widely, 
even at this early date, his reforms extended. In 1275, at a 
parliament held at Westminster, he brought forward a great 
measure, known as the First Statute of Westminster. This 
statute sought, in the first place, to remedy abuses in the royal 
administration, abuses largely due to the foreigners who had 
held office under Henry III. In the second place, it forbade 
the feudal lords to abuse those privileges that were clearly 
within their rights. Thirdly, it guarded the rights of mer- 
chants and citizens. 



114 EISE OF PARLIAMENT. [1285 

Ten years later, in 1285, Edward took up the same subject 
and continued his work of remedying abuses in tlie Second 
Statute of Westminster, which provided for a more rigorous 
correction of the abuses practised by the feudal lords and of 
such royal officials as itinerant justices, sheriffs, and bailiffs. 
It regulated fees and sought to check bribery. 

Edward's earlier work had been largely that of a reformer 
of abuses among the feudal lords and in his own royal house- 
hold, but by 1283 he began to establish his greater claim to 
fame as a lawgiver. 

Statute of Merchants. — Credit in business had not yet come 
into existence, and there was no way whereby merchants could 
compel the payment of a debt. Foreign commerce and trade 
were rapidly becoming a leading source of England's wealth, 
and Edward knew that both would suffer if some remedy for 
debt were not provided. So in 1283 he promulgated a statute, 
known as the Statute of Merchants, which enabled a merchant 
to summon his debtor before the mayor of a chartered borough 
and to force him to sign a bill promising to pay it. If the 
debtor did not pay the merchant, the mayor had authority to 
imprison him or to seize his goods. This simple remedy 
proved of the greatest value and was widely employed, and it 
placed commerce and trade on a new footing in England. 

Statute of Entails. — By the interpretation of the Statute of 
Merchants the entire property of a wealthy lord could be seized 
for the debts of his eldest son. To prevent such a disaster the 
lords demanded at the Westminster parliament of 1285 the 
right to hand down their estates in unbroken succession from 
eldest son to eldest son, so that henceforth no heir could pledge 
the estate for debt. Edward was compelled to consent to this de- 
mand, and it was made statute law by being placed as the first 
chapter of the Second Statute of Westminster, noted already. 
Thus arose the entailed estates of England. Though popular 
during the two centuries following, entailed estates afterward 
went out of favor, and since the fifteenth century the statute, 
though never repealed, has been successfully evaded. 



1290] THE THIRD STATUTE OF WESTMINSTER. 115 

The Third Statute of Westminster: Quia Emptor es. — One of the 

most famous of Edward's measures dealing with the feudal 
lands of England was issued in 1290 and forbade subinfeuda- 
tion. Tenants-in-chief had been accustomed to subinfeudate 
( p. 80 ) or alienate portions of their land for the purpose of 
obtaining knights to meet their military obligations ; but they 
did not want the tenants who received the land from them to 
subinfeudate portions of this land to others, as their tenants and 
the new subtenants could never agree as to which should pay 
the feudal dues to the tenant-in-chief. The royal courts had 
rather favored the practice of subinfeudation, because in a 
growing state it would never do to have land tied up in the 
hands of a few. But the barons, caring far more about their 
feudal dues than about the needs of the people at large, tried 
to stop the practice, and in the parliament of 1290 requested 
the king to issue a statute forbidding subinfeudation. The king 
consented, but caused the statute to be so worded as wholly to 
alter the intent of the barons' request. The Third Statute of 
Westminster (beginning Quia Emptores, " Because the buyers ") 
said that the tenant who alienated or sold the land he held 
of another should resign all rights over the land thus sold. This 
meant that if B, holding land of A, sold or subinfeudated to C, 
C became the tenant not of B, but of A. When the statute went 
into operation, the barons discovered that it worked both ways, 
and what affected their tenants affected also themselves as ten- 
ants of the king. Lands that they themselves sold reverted to 
the crown. This might not have affected them so seriously had 
they been able to avoid selling their lands, but as agriculture 
became less profitable, they could no longer afford to hold to- 
gether their great estates and often had to sell them outright. 
The purchasers at once became the tenants of the king. Two 
results followed : 

(1) The number of those who held directly of the king in- 
creased rapidly, and this increase lowered the social and po- 
litical importance of the tenants-in-chief as a class. (2) At the 
same time, as more and more land came to be held directly of 



116 KISE OF PARLIAMENT. [1279 

the king, the matter of buying and selling land was simplified 
and made easy. This condition tended to break down the 
whole mediaeval land system, and so hastened the destruction 
of feudalism. 

Statute of Winchester. — Thus far Edward had dealt with the 
merchants and the feudal landholders. But in the autumn of 
1285 he turned to the people at large, and in the Statute of 
Winchester sought to make out. of every freeholder a soldier 
and an orderly citizen, ready to aid in the preservation of 
peace. Every man between fifteen and sixty years of age was 
to have armor in his house according to his property, and twice 
every year was to present himself at the " view of armor " held 
in his hundred, where two constables were to inspect the array. 
Three things are especially noteworthy in this statute : no man 
was to be excused because of ignorance of the law ; the con- 
stable appears for the first time in the service of the crown ; 
and, lastly, by a special provision, the act commanded that all 
who did not have armor or weapons should provide bows and 
arrows. Edward, like Henry II before him, knew the value 
of infantry and improved on the Assize of Arms (p. 88) by the 
addition of the bowmen. 

The Statute of Mortmain. — Throughout the Middle Ages the 
church as a landholder had occupied a privileged position. As 
a rule it paid no taxes and performed no material service. 
The church was a tenant that never died and never forfeited 
its lands ; therefore, it had no occasion, as had other feudal 
tenants, to render dues at times of marriage, to furnish profits 
from wardships or the care of minors, or to pay fines when a 
new tenant took the place of one that had died. For these 
reasons land so transferred was said to be given in manum 
mortuum, that is, into the dead hand of the patron saint. 
Edward and his barons were in entire accord in remedying this 
abuse, and in 1279 the Statute of Mortmain was issued. This 
law forbade men to transfer land on any condition to a monas- 
tery or other religious corporation. The terms of the statute, 
though frequently evaded, were nevertheless efficient in check- 
ing the growth of monasteries. 



1295] THE MODEL PARLIAMENT. 117 

The record of the first thirteen years of Edward's reign is a 
brilliant one. In his administrative and legal measures he ac- 
complished a work for law and justice that is not surpassed in 
English history till we reach the nineteenth century. As an 
organizer Edward was no less successful. He gave definite 
form to two of the greatest institutions of England : the royal 
courts of law and the parliament of the realm. 

132. The King's Courts. — Before Edward's time the king's 
council, or certain members of it, sat in a double capacity, as 
Exchequer and as law court (p. 74). The law court had al- 
ready divided into two parts in John's reign : one to follow the 
king and to hear both pleas of the crown aud the common 
pleas, or disputes between the king's subjects ; the other to sit 
permanently in one place, at Westminster, to hear the common 
pleas only. But the distinction between the two courts was 
not very definite and had not been always observed under 
Henry III. Under Edward these became three separate and 
independent bodies : the King's Bench, which followed the 
king when required to do so ; the Court of Common Pleas 
seated at Westminster ; and the Exchequer, which attended to 
the financial business and later developed judicial functions in 
all cases which concerned debts due the crown. The king did 
not give up his judicial functions, for any one deeming that he 
had not received justice might petition the king through the 
chancellor. Out of this practice arose the Court of Chancery, 
an equity court ; while higher still, the king sat at the head of 
his council and acted as a supreme court. 

133. The Model Parliament : Second Step in the Establishment 
of a House of Commons (p. 110). — In order to meet the situation 
created by the crisis of war with France, Scotland, and Wales 
in 1295, Edward had to increase his revenue and to gain the 
support of his people by calling a parliament of their repre- 
sentatives. Up to this time, notwithstanding Earl Simon's in- 
novation of 1265, neither knights nor burgesses were necessary 
to constitute a parliament. Edward fully understood that 
feudalism was on the wane, so, while summoning his barons as 



118 RISE OF PARLIAMENT. [1295 

usual, he determined also to reach out and bring into one body 
members of other than the feudal class, that is, members of the 
agricultural, clerical, and trading classes. He was in need of 
money and knew that the knights were wealthy and were 
familiar with local questions of finance and taxation and that 
the towns were becoming the centres of trade and industry and 
consequently of wealth. Therefore he summoned both knights 
and burgesses. He knew, too, that he must draw the clergy 
more closely to him if he were to retain the loyalty of the church 
and resist the papal claims. Therefore he attached a separate 
clause to the writs addressed to the bishops, bidding each 
bring with him certain of the lesser clergy. Thus there were 
present in this famous parliament two archbishops, eighteen 
bishops with their lesser clergy, sixty-six abbots, three heads 
of religious orders, nine earls, forty-one barons, sixty-three 
knights of the shire, and one hundred and seventy-two. citizens 
and burgesses, — about four hundred persons in all. Later the 
archdeacons, priors, proctors, and abbots ceased to attend ; 
but in other respects for five centuries the legal form of this 
great national body remained unchanged. 

Yet it must not be supposed that this was a modern parlia- 
ment. To-day we think of parliament as a lawmaking body. 
But all that the Model Parliament and its successors did was to 
grant money^ and to present petitions from the king's subjects ; 
but by fusing " the thousand diverse interests of shires and 
boroughs, clergy and laity, magnates and humble folk, into one 
national whole," it " made possible the existence of national 
legislation." 

134. Conquest of Wales. — Three years after his return to 
England, while setting the administration of the kingdom in 
order, Edward engaged in a war with Llewellyn, prince of 
Wales, who had refused to do him homage. The Welsh clans, 



1 The Model Parliament voted Edward a subsidy of one-eleventli of the 
goods of the nobility and the landholders and one-seventh of the goods of the 
burgesses. For sitting and procedure see Ilbert, Parliament, Ch. V. 



1301] 



CONQUEST OF WALES. 



119 



secure in their mountains for many years, maintained their in- 
dependence and refused to recognize England's overlordship. 
In 1277 Edward led an army across the border, and after a brief 
campaign in North Wales, forced Llewellyn to a peace. In 
1282 Llewellyn rose in revolt, but was defeated by Edward and 




Carnarvon Castle. 



From a photograph. 



The first Prince of Wales, Edward II, was born here in 1284. The story- 
goes that Edward I, to pacify the Welsh, promised them a prince born in 
Wales, who could not speak a word of English. He then presented his 
infant son to them. Here, in 1911, King George with great pomp and 
ceremony invested his oldest son as Prince of Wales. 



slain. Wales was a.nnexed to England. By the important 
Statute of Wales (1284), Wales was divided into four shires, 
organized after the English model, and a code of English law 
was drawn up and introduced into the land. Wales became 
then, as it is to-day, a part of England, though Edward wisely 
retained many of the old tribal and feudal divisions. In 1301 
the title of Prince of Wales was given to Edward's son, though 



120 RISE OF PARLIAMENT. [129S 

it carried with it no political power and remained from that 
time forward simply the chief title conferred upon the heir ap- 
parent of the English throne. 

135. The Succession in Scotland. — The Scottish problem was 
neither as easily nor as quickly settled. In 1286, when the 
kingdom of Scotland descended to a young girl, Maid Margaret, 
Edward saw a chance to unite the two countries, and he arranged 
for the marriage of his eldest son and the little Scottish queen. 
Her death on the way to England threw the whole question of 
the Scottish succession into confusion. Claimants to the throne 
came forward, chief of whom were John Balliol and Kobert 
Bruce. The case was submitted to Edward, and, after long 
deliberation, the claims of Bruce were rejected, and Balliol was 
declared king of an undivided Scotland. He was crowned at 
Scone in 1292. 

Edward now claimed as feudal lord the right to hear appeals 
from the court of Balliol in Scotland. Balliol submitted, but the 
Scottish nobility showed Edward that they were prepared to re- 
sist this infringement on their national independence. This re- 
sistance of the Scottish feudal lords involved Edward in wai in 
the north at the time when a serious struggle with Erance was 
imminent. 

136. Edward's Quarrel with France. — Trouble had arisen 
between the English and ]S"orman fishermen in the English 
Channel, and Philip IV, the Fair, of Erance took up the quarrel. 
A war between the two kingdoms seemed unavoidable, and each 
king entered into alliances with the enemies of the other. 
Edward turned to the time-honored enemies of France, — the 
Empire, Savoy, and Flanders, — while Philip allied himself 
with Edward's enemies at home and entered into agreements 
with the Scots and the Welsh. Thus in 1294 and 1295 Edward 
was confronted by Scotland, France, and Wales at the same 
time. No wonder he needed the parliament of 1295 to furnish 
him with revenue and to give him support. 

137. Submission of Scotland. — With the money granted by 
parliament, Edward turned to face the threatening danger. 



1296] 



EDWARD'S QUARREL WITH THE POPE. 



121 



He took up the campaign in the north, where Balliol, aided by 
the French, had renounced the overlordship of Edward and 
had sent an army 
to invade Eng- 
land. Edward led 
an army north- 
ward, defeated 
the Scottish army, 
and pushed on in- 
to Scotland. Bal- 
liol surrendered 
to Edward and 
was dealt with as 
a feudal vassal 
who had broken 
his contract. Ed- 
ward declared the 
kingdom for- 
feited. In 1296 he 
marched as a con- 
queror through 
the land, carried 
off from Scone the 
ancient corona- 
tion stone, and 
treated Scotland 
as a forfeited fief. 
The Scots seemed 
to be as thoroughly conquered as the Welsh had been ; but 
Edward failed to see that there was a feeling of intense in- 
dependence in Scotland and that the Scottish lords were en- 
tirely unwilling to be handed over like the tenantry of an es- 
tate from one feudal lord to another. 

138. Edward's Quarrel with the Pope. — Edward needed money 
for the Scottish struggle that was now sure to come and for 
others that he had planned on the Continent. Parliament made 




The Coronation- Chair in Westminster 
Abbey. 
The Stone of Scone which Edward I brought 
from Scotland is seen just mider the seat. 



122 



RISE OP PARLIAMENT. 



[1206 



a liberal grant, but when Edward demanded a grant from the 
clergy, the latter refused to vote a penny. In 1296 the pope 
had specially directed the clergy of both France and England 

to make no grant what- 
soever without the au- 
thority of the Holy See. 
As the pope had threat- 
ened to excommunicate 
any one who disobeyed 
his command, so Edward 
replied that he would 
outlaw any one who dis- 
obeyed the king. If the 
church could by excom- 
munication place any of 
the faithful beyond the 
pale of her protection, so 
the state could by out- 
lawry place any of its 
members outside the pro- 
tection of the law. An 
outlawed clerk was help- 
less. The king's courts 
would not protect him, 
the church courts could 
not. The English clergy 
had cause to be fright- 
ened ; and though as a 
body they refused to 
yield, as individuals 
they finally promised to 
pay their quota, and act- 
ually did pay in the end 
double the amount that 
Edward had originally 
demanded. The state 




Charing Cross, London. 
From a drawing in the British Museum. 
When Queen Eleanor died, Edward had 
her body brought from Lincoln to West- 
minster for burial. At every spot where 
the body rested, he had a cross erected. 
The popular derivation of Charing is from 
the French chere reine, dear queen. 



had become stronger than the church in England. 



1297] 



CONFIEMATION OF THE CHAETERS. 



123 



139. Confirmation of the Charters. — In 1297 Edward was 
about ready to set out for France, but at this juncture the 
greater barons of England, exasperated by the continued at- 
tacks on their feudal privileges, refused to obey the king's 
command. The merchants, too, had their grievance, for in 
1294, and again in 1297, Edward had seized their wool.. The 
continued resistance of the barons and merchants, the plead- 
ings of the clergy, and Edward's desire to compromise in order 




From a photograph. 



MucHENEY Cross. 



to carry out his plans, led the king to perform that great 
constitutional act known as the Confirmation of the Charters, 
whereby he recognized the principle that the king is bound by 
the law. He promised, while at Ghent in 1297, " to keep in 
every point without breach " the charters of liberty, affirming 
that all judgments contrary to them should be null and void; 
that the charters should be read twice a year to the people ; 
and that the archbishops and bishops should excommunicate 
all who broke them. 



124 RISE OF PARLIAMENT. [1303 

Through the influence of the barons and the merchants the 
king further declared that no aids, subsidies, or taxes on wool 
should be taken for the future without the common consent of 
the realm. This meant that after 1297 the imposition of a 
direct tax in England, except by consent of parliament, was 
contrary to law. The question of indirect taxes, such as cus- 




From a photograph. 
Stirling Castle. 

The most important strategic point in Scotland, captured by Edward I 
after a three months' siege and retaken ten years later by Robert Bruce 
after the battle of Bannockburn. 

toms duties on goods exported and imported, was not to be 
settled for nearly four centuries. 

140. Peace with France. — Edward had planned a double 
expedition against Erance, himself going to Elanders and his 
barons to Gascony. It was the refusal of the latter that led 
Edward to confirm the charters while he was in Elanders. 
The expeditions came to nothing, for through the mediation 
of the pope a truce was declared in 1298. Edward married 
for his second wife the sister of Philip, and his son was be- 
trothed to Philip's daughter. In 1303 Philip got back Gui- 



1307] THE SCOTTISH WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 125 

enne and Edward acknowledged the full sovereignty of the 
French king over the duchy. 

141. The Scottish War for Independence. — During Edward's 
absence on the Continent the Scottish nobility rose in arms. 
Maddened by Edward's treatment of them, by the tyranny of 
his officials, and by the introduction among them of foreign 
soldiers, the Scottish baronage of the lowlands were ready to 
fight for their independence. A knight of good family, Will- 
iam Wallace, had made himself the leader of the uprising, and 
in 1297 won a victory, near Stirling, over Edward's viceroy in 
Scotland. Wallace was neither an outlaw and freebooter, as 
some have said, nor yet the hero that romance has made him. 
He was of the lesser baronage, a rough warrior, who in this 
emergency found a scope for his gifts as a leader. His follow- 
ers increased in number until he was able to dash across the 
border, and to sweep Northumberland with fire and sword. 
Edward, who had been busy in France, now returned, gathered 
an army at York, and marching into Scotland, defeated Wal- 
lace at Falkirk, July 22, 1298 ; but the Scots would not yield, 
and until 1303 the struggle continued. At last, after the final 
treaty had been made with Philip IV of France, Edward turned 
on the Scots, drove all before him, and for the second time 
subdued the country. Wallace was betrayed in 1305, and cru- 
elly executed as a traitor ; Scotland was divided into shires, and 
provision made for representation in the English parliament. 

But Scotland would not stay subdued. For the third time 
insurrection broke out, and this time the leader was Robert 
Bruce. He was the grandson of the old claimant, and was 
crowned king of Scotland at Scone in 1306. Again Edward 
gathered his forces, again he pushed forward at the head of 
an army to the north ; but this time the hand of death was 
upon him. At Burgh-on-Sands, Edward died, July 17, 1307, 
with a last injunction to his barons to bury his heart in the 
Holy Land, and to his son to continue the advance against the 
Scots, bearing his bones in the very front of the line. Thus 
died one of the greatest of English kings. 



126 



RISE OF PAELIAMENT. 



[1314 



142. Edward II and the Scots. — Young Edward II, the 
most thriftless king that ever sat on an English throne, had 
no heart for war. The Scottish nobility, who had thus far 
remained loyal to England, resenting the cowardliness of the 
king, joined in increasing numbers the forces of Bruce. The 
latter captured one Scottish stronghold after another, and 
finally, in 1314, advanced to the siege of Stirling. Then 




Graves of Scottish Kings, Iona. 
Macbeth is said to be buried here. 



From a photograph. 



Edward was shamed into action. Gathering an army of twenty 
thousand foot and three thousand horse from the northern 
shires, he advanced to the relief of Stirling. On the field of 
BannocJcburn, within sight of the walls of Stirling castle, the 
battle was fought, June 24, 1314, which won for the Scots their 
independence, and postponed union with England for four 
hundred years. In the most disgraceful defeat it ever suffered, 



1320] STRUGGLE BETWEEN KING AND BARONS. 127 

the English army was driven southward in flight, and Eobert 
Bruce became undisputed king of Scotland. 

143. Continued Struggle between King and Barons: Edward II's 
Deposition. — The reign of Edward II was a long-continued 
struggle by the barons in council and parliament to control 
the bad government of the king and his favorites. Edward 
succeeded to the throne by the right of inheritance ; he took a 
very precise coronation oath promising to uphold the " laws 
and righteous customs " of the land ; and during his reign, 
parliaments of three estates — nobility, clergy, and commons 
— met frequently. But parliaments were new and the barons 
led the resistance to the king's policy. Edward, too indolent 
and indifferent to carry the burden of government, gave con- 
trol into the hands of Pierre Gaveston, a Gascon knight, whom 
he created earl of Cornwall and invested with honors and 
estates. The barons and clergy of the council, claiming to 
have a voice in the naming of the king's ministers, compelled 
Edward to banish Gaveston in 1308 ; but the king restored him 
the next year. Then the council, affronted by this insult, forced 
the king to intrust his powers to a committee of barons — Lords 
Ordainers — authorized to govern the kingdom for him, and to 
make such ordinances as should be to the honor of church and 
king, and to the advantage of the people. The ordinances 
issued by these baronial guardians, in 1310 and 1311, were 
little more than summaries of the barons' grievances, designed 
to limit the powers of the king. The king assented to the 
ordinances and they became statute law. But the next year 
Edward broke with the barons and recalled Gaveston. Then 
the barons, gathering their forces, seized Gaveston and put 
him to death (1312). The committee was reestablished with 
Thomas of Lancaster at the head. 

Edward, weary of being controlled by the barons, endeav- 
ored to obtain a repeal of the ordinances, but after his defeat 
at Bannockburu, M^hich thoroughly discredited him, he was 
obliged to give it up and to continue under baronial control. 
But Thomas of Lancaster proved a miserable ruler, and in 1320 



128 RISE OF PARLIAMENT. [1330 

Edward, displaying unexpected vigor, turned upon Lancaster, 
whom he defeated, seized, and beheaded with many others of 
the baronial party. From a full parliament of 1322 he ob- 
tained a repeal of the ordinances, as prejudicial "to the estate 
of the crown," and by the same parliament was issued a note- 
worthy declaration that henceforth any matter to be established 
for king, his heirs, realm, and people, must be treated, accorded, 
and established in a parliament of all the estates. This dec- 
laration was a defence of the dignity of crown and parliament 
against the baronial faction. 

■ But Edward failed to rise to the situation offered, of govern- 
ing with the aid of parliament. He bega.n another rule of 
favorites, — the Despensers, — and from 1322 to 1326 insolence 
and bad government prevailed. Then the barons, led by one 
Eoger Mortimer, revolted against the king. They seized and 
hanged the Despensers, captured Edward himself in Wales, 
and causing a parliament to be summoned in the name of 
Edward's young son, the future Edward III, deposed Edward 
II and placed him in confinement, where he died in 1327, 
probably put to death by his keepers. This deposition of the 
king, the first of which we have certain knowledge in English 
history, was not a legal act, but one of violence, the forced set- . 
ting aside of a bad and incompetent king by those who had the 
power to do so. The significant fact is that this revolt of the 
barons had the approval of parliament. 

Edward III became king under the regency of Eoger 
Mortimer. England never sank lower than during the four 
years that followed. Fortunately the period was short ; in 
1330 the young Edward, then eighteen years old, asserted his 
right to the throne, and seizing Mortimer had him tried and 
executed. Then the personal rule of Edward III began. 



CHAPTER X. 

END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 

144. The New Age. — The reign of Edward I in England, as 
that of Philip IV in France, marks the beginning of the end 
of the Middle Ages. The new age was secular and political 
rather than religious and feudal. Feudalism as a political 
force was passing away. The great mediaeval empire founded 
by Charles the Great (800) and revived by Otto I (962) as the 
Holy Roman Empire had steadily lost in prestige and power. 
The great mediaeval church, the strongest and most inflxiential 
of all institutions during the Middle Ages, which Gregory VII 
and Innocent III had placed higher in authority than kings 
and princes, was on the eve of a great decline. The Crusades, 
in origin great feudal adventures, were no longer interesting 
the leaders of the west ; for kings in England, France, and 
Spain were engaged in building up strong centralized states, 
not in fighting Turks in the Holy Land. Eoyal aims were 
becoming national. Kiugs were becoming more powerful, 
because they were substituting their law for the old feudal 
customs, and were taking into their own hands control of jus- 
tice and finance. They founded schools of law, and in the 
place of feudal lords took lawyers for their advisers. In the 
administration of government they began to employ legal 
methods and forms. 

145. Edward's Trouble with Scotland. — When Edward III 
was crowned in 1327, England was still in the midst of the 
war with Scotland, whose independence was recognized in a 
" shameful peace " made by Roger Mortimer in 1328. The 
death of Robert Bruce and the accession of his son David, 

129 



130 



END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 



[1328 



a child of five, to the throne, gave a chance for the successful 
revolt of Edward Balliol, son of the old John Balliol. 
Edward III gave him aid, and Balliol as king of Scotland ren- 
dered homage to Edward as overlord. 

146. Trouble with France. — Bruce fled to France and gained 




Froin a photograph. 



York Minster. 



Begun in the twelfth" century and finished in the fifteenth century. It 
is the cathedral of the archbishop of York ("Primate of England"; 
the archbishop of Canterbury bears the title " Primate of all England "). 
It is the centre of religious influence for the north of England. 



the support of Philip VI, the first king of the new Valois line, 
who eagerly seized the opportunity of provoking Edward into 
a war with France. He wished to prevent if possible the 
union of Scotland to England and to drive the English from 
Guienne and Gascony in France. Edward was ready for the 
challenge and in this emergency made '^2^ iijevitable by laying 



1332] THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 131 

claim to the throne of France. In this way began the Hundred 
Years' War with France. 

It was fortunate for Edward that parliament favored the 
war, for since the Confirmation of the Charters, kings of Eng- 
land had had to depend upon that body for an important part 
of their revenues. For carrying on the war with France, par- 
liament made large grants, and in return Edward made conces- 
sions. 

147. Third Step in the Development of the House of Commons. 
— Parliament had undergone some important changes since 
1295, when Edward I summoned his people to meet him at 
Westminster. Then parliament had been composed of three 
estates, the clergy, the nobility, and the commons. But some- 
time during the ensuing half-century it had ceased to be an as- 
sembly of estates and had separated into two Jiouses. The clergy, 
as such, had ceased to attend, preferring to make their grant of 
money in their own convocation. The knights, sometime about 
1330, had turned away from the nobles, to whom by origin they 
belonged, and had joined the burgesses, because they saw their 
interests to be identical with those of the burgesses rather than 
with those of the higher nobles. The knights, furthermore, 
were summoned by general writ addressed to the sheriff, and 
so, like the burgesses, were an elected body ; while the lords 
were summoned individually by writs addressed to them by 
name. Thus, by 1332 we find two houses instead of three es- 
tates : a House of Lords, composed of the barons and greater 
clergy, the latter of whom sat, not as ecclesiastics, but as spir- 
itual lords ; and a House of Commons, composed of the knights 
and the burgesses. 

Two important features characterize the development of the 
English parliament as contrasted with the parliamentary bodies 
of France and Spain. 1. Younger sons of barons were not 
noble and, if they went to parliament at all, went as knights 
or burgesses and sat in the House of Commons, thus prevent- 
ing a social distinction between the two houses. 2. The higher 
clergy, bishops and abbots, were present because they were land- 



132 



END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 



[1332 



holders, holders of baronies, and not because they were clergy- 
men; they were but few in number and sat with the lords, 
whereas if all the higher clergy had come, they must have 
formed a separate house. The result was (1) that the House 
of Commons represented a larger part of the nation than did 
the representatives of the commons in France, and (2) that it 




From a photograph. 
Medieval Guildhall at King's Lynn, Norfolk. 

had but one house to oppose it in parliament instead of two, 
and the opposition of the House of Lords was rarely the scorn- 
ful opposition of a social caste toward its inferiors. These 
conditions were favorable to a sturdy and independent devel- 
opment of the House of Commons in England. 

148. Industry and Trade : Towns and Gilds. — Up to this 
time the towns, which were the centres of trade, had aimed to 
keep the control of the business in their own hands, in order 
to prevent outsiders, or " foreigners," from getting a share of 



1363] INDUSTRY AND TRADE. 133 

it. Soon after the Conquest, merchant gilds had sprung up in 
the majority of towns, and each gild regulated, with great 
minuteness, trade and industry of every kind within the town. 
Only members of the gild could do business in the town. Trade 
and commerce were managed entirely by the town as such, not 
by individuals or by the state. In the reign of Edward III 
the merchant gild began to give place to the craft gilds. The 
chief difference between these gilds was that the merchant gild 
controlled all the trading interests of the town, while each craft 
gild dealt only with its own particular industry. Trade still 
remained under the control of the towns, which in the four- 
teenth century were the chief centres of wealth in the kingdom. 

The towns did business, of course, with other English towns, 
but they also had both import and export trade with towns 
abroad. As yet, however, the English had no merchant vessels, 
and were compelled to use foreign ships to carry on trade. The 
right to engage in such foreign trade was conferred on certain 
specially favored aliens. The merchants of Flanders and north- 
ern France enjoyed a monopoly of the trade, but Edward III 
encouraged other aliens to bring goods to England, and in 1335 
granted freedom of trade to all outsiders. England was not, 
however, ready for so free a trade, and the policy was reversed 
in 1392 (p. 150). 

At the same time Edward sought to regulate a new export- 
ing business that had grown up under his grandfather. For 
convenience, merchants were sending the most important or 
staple goods, such as wool, hides, leather, and tin, to one Con- 
tinental city, whence they were distributed. This gathering 
of exports in one city, called the Staple city, had many advan- 
tages: the goods in transit were more easily protected against 
pirates, the customs duties were more conveniently levied, 
and the business of buying and selling was more readily car- 
ried on. Edward abolished the Staple city and allowed Eng- 
lish merchants to send their wool and other commodities 
where they pleased. But the plan did not work well, and 
after various changes, Calais in 1363 became the seat of the 



134 END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. [1346 

foreign staple, and remained for about' two centuries the cen- 
tre of England's trade with the Continent. 

The increasing wealth of the towns, largely due to the ex- 
pansion of foreign trade, the greater revenue derived from 
import and export duties, and the rising credit of the king- 
dom, which made the negotiating of loans easier, gave Edward 
the money that he needed to carry on the French war. 

149. The Hundred Years' War. — In this war (the causes of 
which have already been noted, p. 130) Edward was sup- 
ported in part by the old feudal army and in part by the 
native yeomanry of England. The lords, who composed the 
cavalry, threw themselves into the war as if it were but a 
tournament governed by the rules of chivalry. Knights were 
eager for adventure ; even ladies followed the armies to bestow 
their favors on successful warriors. But the most important 
part of Edward's army was national, not feudal, in character. 
The men of the Assize of Arms and ' the Statute of Win- 
chester, that is, the freemen, armed with lances, bows and 
arrows, and other weapons, made up the infantry. These 
yeomen, though often unwillingly pressed into service, formed 
an efficient military force, the like of which was unknown on 
the Continent. 

Great Battles of the War. — The beginning of English victory 
was the naval battle of Sluys (1340), which was fought be- 
tween the English and the French fleets of£ the Flemish coast, 
resulted in the destruction of the French navy, and cleared 
the way for the invasion of France. Edward then determined 
on an invasion of France, and in 1346 landed on the coast at 
Cherbourg. Pushing his way inland, — a dangerous venture, 
for without connection with the seacoast he was in constant 
danger of being cut off and surrounded in a hostile land by 
the enemy's forces, — he was brought to bay by Philip, near 
the little town of Crecy^ August 26, 1346. Here a famous 
battle was fought, in which the English archers won a victory 
over the feudal array of the French king. The bowmen 
placed in the front of the battle first shot down ruthlessly the 



1355] 



GEEAT BATTLES OF THE WAR. 



135 



Genoese mercenaries of the French king, and then repelled every 

advance of the armed feudal cavalry. The number of French 

dead is said to have equalled 

the whole English force. In 

this battle the fifteen-year-old 

Black Prince (of Wales) — 

so called from the black armor 

he wore — won his spurs and 

the honor of knighthood. 

After Crecy, Edward ad- 
vanced to Calais, which sur- 
rendered (1347) after a year's 
siege and remained a posses- 
sion of the English kings for 
more than two hundred years. 

The first period of the war 
ended with the capture of 
Calais, but in 1355 war was 
renewed. Philip had died in 
1350, and his son John took 
up the struggle. At the same 
time the Scots renewed the 
attack from the north. In 
the summer of 1355 Edward 
mercilessly devastated Lo- 
thian out of wrath against 
Scotland, while his son, the 
Black Prince, starting from 
Gascony, harried central 
France from Guienne to 
Poitiers. At the latter town 
the prince was confronted by 
a French army, larger than 
his own, under the command of John himself, and was com- 
pelled to fight for his life. But at Poitiers, as at Crecy, the 
English archers carried the day. King John was captured 




From a photograph. 

Effigy of the Black Prince 

ON HIS Tomb in CanterbojIT 

Cathedral. 

Over this tomb hangs the prince'f 

armor, which he wore in the 

French War. 



136 END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. [1360 

and the French forces completely defeated. The battle was 
fought on September 19, 1356. 

The Peace of Bretigny. — The succession of English victories, 
the capture of King John, the ruin which had fallen on the 
country, forced the French to make peace with the English. 
At Bretigny, in 1360, a treaty was signed. According to this 
treaty, Edward gave up his claim to the French throne and 
to all lands in northern France except Calais and Ponthieu 
and some other towns and castles. In return he received the 
whole of the duchies of Gascony and Guienne, to be held by 
him henceforth in full sovereignty and no longer as a vassal 
of the French king, and in addition a ransom for the French 
king of three million gold crowns. Three years before, he had 
made peace with Scotland, had released David Bruce, and, in 
return for one hundred thousand marks ransom money and 
the towns of Berwick and Roxburgh, acknowledged Bruce's 
title to the crown. 

150. The Position of Edward III. — In 1360 Edward was at 
the height of his success. Victor at Crecy, Calais, and 
Poitiers, the master of two kings, one of France and the other 
of Scotland, he had been able to dictate a peace which freed 
the English king from his vassalage to the king of France and 
which restored to the English crown lands in southern France. 
His reign had been a time of splendor and display. French 
booty and money were poured into England, and luxury in- 
vaded the life of the court. Edward encouraged an artificial 
chivalry, which, with its Order of the Garter, the Thistle, and 
the Golden Fleece, its Round Table and Courts of Love, gave 
rise to a social caste far different from the truer feudal chivalry 
of the Crusades. 

Chaucer. — Of this life Chaucer wrote in the Canterbury Tales, 
the first great collection of narrative poems in English. • These 
tales are told by thirty pilgrims, representative of the middle 
and upper classes of English society, who are on their way 
from the Tabard Inn in southern London to the tomb of the 
martyred Thomas a Becket at Canterbury ; and while telling 



1360] 



CHAUCER. 



137 



their tales these pilgrims not only give an excellent idea of 
their own characters, but also show us a picture of English 
life at this period. 




From a photograph. 
Interior op Canterbury Cathedral. 

Becket was slain beyond the arch and to the left. His shrine, 
to which pilgrimages were made, was beyond the farthest point 
seen in the picture. 



138 END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. [1360 

151. The Manorial System. — All land in England at this time 
was supposedly under a lord and was cultivated by the villagers 
over whom the lord had jurisdiction. During the twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries these villagers, called villeins, were obliged 
to remain for life and to labor on their lord's land. Such an obli- 
gation was necessary at this time. Eeudal lords derived their 




From, a photograph. 
Tithe Baen at Bradfoed-on-Avon. 

wealth from their lands ; their lands had to be cultivated ; and 
inasmuch as hired labor had hardly as yet come into existence, 
the only persons to cultivate them were the tenants. Upon the 
manors the methods of cultivation were almost everywhere the 
same. The villagers worked in the open fields, ploughed, sowed, 
and harvested, much as they had done for centuries. A large 
portion of their time they devoted to the demesne lands, consist- 
ing of those strips in the great open fields that were held by the 
lord. They were also required to make certain payments, some 
of which were regularly sent in for the support of the lord. The 



1349] THE BLACK DEATH. 13S 

amount of both labor and payment was fixed by the "custom 
of the manor." The extent of the manoral jurisdiction varied 
greatly. Sometimes it covered only one vill, often it extended 
more widely. There was no single rule or law in governing the 
relation of lord and villeins. All was determined by local cus- 
tom, though in general the conditions prevailing in one manor 
prevailed in all. 

152. Changes in the Agricultural System. — The changes that 
mark the transition from the mediaeval system of agriculture to 
one more modern were just beginning to appear, and were not 
to be completed for two centuries. Population was increas- 
ing and land was growing scarce. The old wasteful methods of 
agriculture could not compete with the new conditions in trade 
and industry. The amount of money in circulation had in- 
creased, first in the towns and at court, and gradually in the 
country districts. Three results followed : (1) lords let out their 
own lands, the demesne lands, at a money rent to farmers, who 
were sometimes their own bailiffs, trying to make a profit out 
of agriculture ; (2) many villeins began to commute their labor 
service for money ; while (3) others, attracted by the new op- 
portunities in the towns, began to desert the manors. In order 
to fill their places, hired laborers, hitherto very rare, had to be 
obtained. Thus a new system of leased farms and paid labor 
began to be introduced into the agricultural organization. 
This important social and economic change proceeded slowly, 
until it received a check because of the Black Death. 

153. The Black Death. — In the interval between Crecy and 
Poitiers a fearful plague spread over England, known as the 
Black Death. During the years 1348 and 1349 from a third to 
a half of the population perished. The fearful disease spared 
no class of society, but fell most heavily (1) upon the artisans 
in the crowded towns, where little pains was taken to keep 
houses and streets clean ; (2) upon the agricultural laborers in 
the country, whose hovels and cottages were always filthy ; and 
(3) upon the monks, and the parish priests. At one time in 
London the mortality rose to two hundred a day, while in 



140 ' END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. [134& 

certain manors of from three to four hundred population, more 
than a hundred and fifty were carried off. 

Results. — The great plague effected one important change in 
the situation on the manors. Before the Black Death laborers 
were plentiful, villeins were beginning to pay money instead 
of laboring for the lands they held, and the lord was hiring 
laborers at a daily wage to cultivate his lands. The plague cut 
down the supply of labor, both on the manors and in the towns. 
But land had to be cultivated and industry had to be carried 
on, consequently the demand for labor became greater than the 
supply. The free laborer could ask what wages he liked, either 
in agriculture or in trade. For the lords of manors the situa- 
tion was made worse by the failure of crops, the rise of prices, 
and the frequent desertion of the villeins, who, attracted by 
higher wages, rushed to the towns to fill the places made vacant 
by the deaths there. Then king and parliament stepped in 
and tried to regulate wages by legislation. Parliament was, 
in the main, a body of landholders, so that what it did was in 
its own interest, not in that of the peasantry. 

Statutes of Laborers. — First, in 1349, the king issued a decree 
addressed to the sheriffs, bidding them see that every man and 
woman, free and bond, return to service at the old wages. Two 
years later, this decree was embodied by parliament in a statute 
known as the Statute of Laborers, designed to keep down, by 
main force, the price of labor. The statute forbade hired 
laborers in the country and artisans in the cities to receive 
more than they had been customarily paid in 1346, and forbade, 
likewise, lords of towns and manors to pay higher wages, on 
penalty of a fine. Many later statutes, growing increasingly 
severe in their regulation of labor, were passed to deal with 
this difficult situation. These statutes declared that all persons 
named in them must work at a reasonable rate, the amount of 
which parliament was unwilling to fix absolutely. Not to 
work for a reasonable wage was an offence against the law, as 
was also the giving of wages that were unreasonable. A de- 
termined effort was made to carry out these statutes, both by 



1376] THE GOOD PAELIAMENT. 141 

specially appointed commissions and by the justices of the 
peace in the counties, and to a certain extent the effort was 
successful. The significance of the statutes is that England 
■was beginning to deal with a new and very difficult problem, 
hitherto settled by the towns and manors themselves, — the 
problem of labor, wages, and above all of poverty. The 
Statutes of Laborers are the first of the " Poor Laws." 

154. Losses in France : Corruption at Home. — The period 
from 1360 to 1377 is one of steady decline in the greatness and 
brilliancy of the king's reign. jSTotwithstanding the peace of 
Bretigny (p. 136) the war with France was renewed, and after 
1370 province after province in France withdrew its allegiance 
from the king of England. The French king, Charles V, re- 
gained most of what had been lost by the peace of Bretigny, 
and though John of Gaunt, a younger son of Edward III, 
ravaged the country from Calais to Bordeaux, he did little to 
restore English control. Pope Gregory XI made every effort 
to bring about peace between France and England, but his 
efforts were vain. France was fighting for the old purpose of 
driving the English out of the country, and was succeeding. 
By 1375 the English held little more than the cities of Bordeaux, 
Bayonne, and Calais. 

Meanwhile, at home, administration had become very cor- 
rupt. The king was mentally broken and under the control of 
John of Gaunt. The elder son, the Black Prince, was suffering 
from a disease which wholly unfitted him for taking part in 
the government. A clique of the friends of John of Gaunt 
controlled affairs. They systematically robbed the nation by 
illegal exactions, by receiving privileges and abusing ^hem, 
and by raising prices and appropriating the proceeds. 

155. The Good Parliament. — So empty had the treasury be- 
come in 1376, in consequence of the costly wars and the cor- 
ruption at court, that the king's privy council decided to sum- 
mon parliament, which had not been called since 1373. 
Parliament had grown steadily in power during the reign of 
Edward III and had established effectively its control over 



142 END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. [1377 

taxation. Though called to do no more' than consent to what 
the king and his council proposed, the knights and burgesses 
could refuse their consent if necessary. They were gradually 
becoming accustomed to their position, and should occasion 
offer, were ready to remonstrate and even to assume on 
emergency powers of their own. 

In 1376 the opportunity came. Summoned for the purpose 
of consenting to a levy of taxes, the knights and burgesses, in 
an angry mood, determined before they granted a penny of 
supplies to get rid of the men who had mismanaged affairs 
and robbed the treasury. Supported by the Black Prince, who, 
a helpless invalid, resented the tyrannical attitude of his 
younger brother, John of Gaunt, they took a new and unex- 
pected stand. They declared that the king would have had 
enough money had the realm been wisely governed, and that 
as long as evil men were in office, no grant of theirs could 
bring prosperity to the kingdom. To make their protest more 
effective, they elected a speaker, Peter de la Mare, a knight 
of the shire of Hereford, and through him they formally im- 
peached the friends of John of Gaunt as traitors to the king, 
and demanded that they be deprived of their offices. John of 
Gaunt, anxious to appease the people, whose friend he always 
claimed to be, and fearing the power of the Black Prince, 
yielded to the demand of the Commons. The death of the 
Black Prince during the sitting of parliament greatly discour- 
aged their leaders and left them more or less at the mercy of 
John of Gaunt. The latter, who had yielded to their demands 
only to strengthen his own position, now came out in his true 
colors, and led a reaction against the work of the Good Parlia- 
ment. He brought back his favorites and threw Peter de la 
Mare into prison. A packed parliament of 1377 confirmed 
these acts. 

156. State and Church : Religious Degeneration. — For three- 
quarters of a century parliament had been disputing the right 
of the pope to interfere in English affairs. In 1307 it had for- 
bidden the heads of religious houses to send any money to 



1377] JOHN WICLIF. 143 

Rome, and had protested against the way higher ecclesiastical 
officials abroad were forcing money from the monasteries and 
religious houses in England. In 1351 it passed the first Statute 
of Provisors, imposing severe penalties upon all who received 
benefices at the hands of the pope. In like manner, the right 
of appeal to the pope had been forbidden in 1353 by the first 
Statute of Proimunire. The king, however, rarely enforced 
these statutes, and they had to be repeated again and again. 
These acts were the acts of parliament, and not of the clergy ; 
that is, they were the acts of the state, and not of the church. 

At the very time when parliament was limiting the authority 
of the pope in England, the people were becoming thoroughly 
dissatisfied with the way in which the English clergy were 
performing their religious duties. The higher clergy, bishops 
and abbots, had become worldly and avaricious ; the monas- 
teries had absorbed great wealth ; the lesser clergy, the parish 
priests, were wretchedly poor and inefficient, often unable to 
perform their parish duties. 

William Langland,^ the author of The Vision of Piers Plow- 
man, himself perhaps a villein who had risen to the rank of 
the lesser clergy and had spent his life in the performance of 
his duties, presents a sorrowful picture of the condition of the 
friars and the parochial priests. The latter, he says, neglected 
their charges, quarrelled with the friars, and lived as wolves 
among their own sheep. 

157. John Wiclif. — The man who led the attack upon the 
privileges, corruption, and wealth of the clergy was John 
Wiclif. He was born in Yorkshire in 1320, and went in early 
life to Oxford, where he was for a time master of Balliol Col- 

1 The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman, ed. Skeat, 1886, Vol. 
I, Text C. VII, 119-129, VIII, 1-67, XVII, 241-278. A modern version of this 
poem is issued in the King's Classics Series. For Langland, whose tale was the 
wretchedness of the people, as Chaucer's was the pleasure of the aristocratic 
class, see Taine, pp. 100 ff., and Jusserand, Literary History of the English 
People, I, Bk. Ill, Ch. IV. Chaucer and Langland should be read for differ- 
ence in the points of view. See the quotations in Frazer, Part II, Nos. 2, 13, 
20, 21, 24, 25, 26 (" A Pardoner ") , 31. 



144 



END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 



[1377 



lege. In 1374 lie was made rector of Lutterworth, a village in 
Leicestershire, which became on this account the centre of a 

new religious agita- 
tion. Wiclif was the 
last of the mediaeval 
schoolmen. But he 
was no unpractical 
theorizer ; he saw 
the evils of the times 
and protested against 
them. 

Wiclif's teaching 
was largely destruc- 
tive. He denounced 
the claims of the pa- 
pacy, and as early as 
1366, in a pamphlet. 
The Dominion of 
God, had declared 
that the state was 
not subordinate to 
the church. He next 
attacked the clergy 
for their wealth and 
their interest in 




Wiclif. 
Erom an engraving by Alexander Van Hgecken. 



worldly affairs, and declared that the church should limit itself 
strictly to its spiritual functions. He vigorously opposed the 
use by the clergy of excommunication. In 1377 his views 
were condemned by Gregory XI, but the condemnation was 
without effect in England, A great schism in the church, 
resulting in the election of two popes, weakened the authority 
of the papacy, and Wiclif, taking advantage of this fact, grew 
bolder. He attacked the doctrines as well as the practices of 
the church, and asserted the superiority of an active over an 
ascetic life, a claim the more striking in that the ascetic had 
been the ideal of the Middle Ages. He inveighed against the 



1377] 



ACCESSION OF RICHARD II. 



145 



friars, whom he charged with hypocrisy and worldliness ; he 
inspired a body of " poor priests " to preacli to the people ; and 
he gave to these priests 
an English Bible, trans- 
lated by himself or his 
followers, probably the 
most complete version 
issued up to this time. 

158. Accession of Rich- 
ard II.— In 1377 Ed- 
ward III died, and his 
grandson Richard, son 
of the Black Prince, as- 
cended the throne with- 
out opposition. The 
young king was a mere 
lad of ten, and for twelve 
years England was ruled 
by regencies. Richard 
came to the throne in an 
evil time. The French 
were threatening to in- 
vade England ; parties 
at court were engaged in 
factional quarrels and 
were struggling with 
each other for the con- 
trol of the government. 
The baronage, with the 
king's uncle, John of 
Gaunt, as their leading 
representative, had de- 
generated into a body of selfish parasites, preying on the 
wealth of the kingdom. 

The situation was one calling for statesmanship of a high 
order. Older ideas and institutions were giving way before 




Richard II. 
From the contemporary picture formerly 
in Westminster Abbey. This is the first 
contemporary painting of any English king. 



146 END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. [1381 

new ways of thinking and living. The agricultural system 
was being transformed and agriculture was declining in im- 
portance; industry, trade, and commerce were competing with 
agriculture, towns were increasing in size and wealth, and 
money was circulating more widely than ever before ; religious 
unrest and heresy were prevalent, and the mediaeval church as 
a factor in the daily life of the people was becoming less con- 
spicuous and influential ; heavy and expensive wars were in- 
creasing taxation, while popular burdens were made weightier 
by bad government, corruption in high places, and extrava- 
gance. The times called for a strong king or a strong minister, 
but no such leader appeared in English history for many years. 
But the troubles at court and the difficult problem of Rich- 
ard's personal character are of but little importance when com- 
pared with (1) the peasant's revolt, (2) the rise of the Lollards, 
and (3) the growth and activities of parliament. 

159. I. The Condition and Grievances of the Peasantry. — 
During the fourteenth century the condition of the villeins had 
been improving : they had begun to pay money so as to be free 
from labor on the lord's demesne land, and the lords had begun 
to lease out their home lands, or else to employ hired laborers 
to work them instead of the villeins, as formerly. Thus the 
old agricultural system was breaking down,, the growth of 
towns and of commerce was giving to the peasantry new means 
of livelihood, and a new class of society was taking shape, 
composed of free or hired laborers. The changing economic 
conditions were causing widespread restlessness and discontent. 
The villeins remaining on the manors were restless under the 
yoke of their labor services. The hired laborers hated the 
statutes fixing their wages and the lawyers and justices of 
the peace who enforced the law against them. The people in 
general hated the rich, whether nobles or merchants, for their 
indifference, and the monasteries for their tyranny and selfish- 
ness ; and they sided with the parish priests in their poverty. 

160. The Peasant Revolt of 1381. — A single act turned the 
irritation of the laboring classes into a revolt. So great had 



1381] THE PEASANT REVOLT. 147 

become the deficit of the government that parliament adopted 
a new form of tax, a poll tax, or so much a head on every one 
over sixteen years of age. The last time this tax was levied 
it was made exceedingly heavy and became very unpopular. 
On the appearance of the tax collectors Essex and Kent gave 




A Reaper's Cart going Up-hill. 

From fourteenth century drawing in Jusserand's English Way- 
faring Life. The condition of the roads may be imagined from 
the number of men and horses required. The hill is exaggerated 
to fit the picture to its proper space. 

the first signal for the revolt, followed by Norfolk, Suffolk, 
and other counties ; and before the year 1381 was over, a large 
portion of southern and southeastern England was to a greater 
or less extent in insurrection. Each district in town and 
county had its own special grievance; no one cause or set of 
causes can be given to explain the movement as a whole. Even 
the friars, teaching poverty and a common brotherhood, gave 
a religious sanction to the uprising. 

In the three populous counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cam- 
bridge, where the movement was earliest cliecked, the revolt 
had the appearance of a concerted uprising instigated by revo- 
lutionary agents working secretly among the people. The 
mob of Suffolk, consisting of villeins, hired laborers, members 



148 END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. [1S81 

of the lesser clergy, tradesmen, and artisans, sacked manor- 
houses and monasteries, burning and plundering at will. 

While the insurrection was spreading in the east, a large 
body of men from the southeastern counties gathered under 
John Ball, the preacher, and Wat Tyler (the tiler), on June 12, 
1381, to march on London. They were convinced that John 
of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster and the uncle of the king, was m 
part responsible for the evil government, and they determined 
to ask redress of the young king. On June 13 they entered 
London and destroyed the palace of John of Gaunt, the Temple 
(the house of the lawyers), and other Inns where lived students 
of the law. Richard met them on the 14th and promised 
to abolish serfdom and all forms of servile labor, to pardon 
all the rebels, to permit the villeins to trade outside the 
manors in the towns, and to fix rents of lands at fourpence 
an acre. When this had been done, the more moderate insur- 
gents dispersed. But the radicals remained, and in the rioting 
that followed Wat Tyler was slain. The king, seizing the 
opportune moment when the rioters were confused by the loss 
of their leader, shrewdly placed himself at their head and led 
them away from the city. From that moment the cause of the 
rebels was lost. 

The government took a frightful revenge. Eioters were 
hanged without mercy ; none of the rebels was spared. John 
Ball was caught and hanged. Parliament compelled the king 
to repeal all the liberating charters and itself passed an act 
annulling all the concessions that had been made. The im- 
mediate results of the peasants' revolt were probably slight; 
the landlords, taking advantage of an unsuccessful uprising, 
probably made the lot of the villein for the moment harder 
than it had been before. But no legislation could stop the 
economic and social change that was taking place in the 
fourteenth century. The movement that was transforming 
labor services into money payments, the villein into the free 
laborer, and the old open fields into lands let out at lease 
went steadily on. 



1384] RICHARD AND PARLIAMENT. 149 

161. II. The Religious Revolt: the Lollards. — Popular dis- 
content, thus expressed on the social and economic side in 
the revolt of the peasants, found expression on the religious 
side in the rise of the Lollards. The Lollards were followers 
of Wiclif. They denounced the sacraments, believed in preach- 
ing as the chief aid in effecting conversion, denied transub- 
stantiation, and opposed confession and the worship of saints. 
Before the peasants' revolt, little had been done to check this 
heresy ; but after 1381, though no Lollard was ever accused of 
participation in the uprising, a vigorous campaign, led by the 
archbishop of Canterbury, was begun, and Wiclif's doctrines 
were condemned. 

The first generation of Lollards was unable to withstand 
these attacks of the church. As has been well said, " They 
were not ready to be martyrs." All who were brought to trial 
at this time recanted and returned to the fold ; but thousands, 
taught by the "poor priests" of Wiclif, continued to receive 
the doctrines presented to them and to believe in secret or 
without outward display. Wiclif died in 1384, but his death 
was only an incident in the movement. The revolt from the 
doctrines of the mediaeval church had begun ; and in the next 
century, men of the second generation were willing to be burned 
at the stake for their faith.^ The revolt of the Lollards made 
easier the religious reformation of the sixteenth century in 
England. 

162. III. Richard and Parliament. — Eichard was not an in- 
competent king, as was Edward II, but he was inexperienced 
and unable to see what the country needed, and he tried to 
make himself an absolute king, governing without the interfer- 
ence of the nobles. Parliament, though meeting regularly and 
protesting frequently against the bad government and heavy 

1 Wiclif's teaching was carried back to Bohemia by the students and others 
who had come to England in the train of Anne of Bohemia, Richard's first 
wife (1382), and had studied at Oxford. In Bohemia the new ideas bore 
fruit in the movement under John Hus, who was on the Continent, as was 
Wiclif in England, the forerunner of Luther and the Protestant Reformation. 



150 END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. - [1392 

taxes, was not an independent body speaking for the nation. 
It was controlled by the barons, who used it as an instrument 
aiding them to obtain control of government and riddance of 
their enemies. Attendance on parliament was a heavy burden, 
and neither knights nor burgesses went to Westminster will- 
ingly. Even when there they had as yet but little power to 
check the king or to control the barons. 

Richard's government may be divided into three periods: 

1. During the first period of his rule, particularly from 1383 
to 1388, the king, freeing himself from the control of the 
barons, chose his own officials and entered upon a practical 
application of his own idea of absolute government. But in 
1388 parliament, acting under the influence of the great nobles, 
checked the king's rule and put an end to his tyranny and 
extravagance. 

2. With 1389, Richard, now of age, forsaking favorites and 
despotic methods, began to govern with moderation through 
his ministers and with the advice of parliament. For eight 
years he governed as a constitutional king. Finances were 
ably managed, taxation was light and fairly apportioned, and 
many wise statutes were passed touching (1) commerce, (2) 
the church, and (3) the nobles. 

In his commercial policy Richard encouraged aliens to trade 
in England, as Edward III had done. But the towns, par- 
ticularly London, protested against the privileges granted to 
aliens, inasmuch as English artisans were already working 
up wool into cloths at home. Therefore, in 1392, parlia- 
ment passed a law to discourage alien trade. But at the same 
time it encouraged native English industry, and made possible 
the control of the internal and retail trade of England by 
Englishmen. 

No less important were the statutes dealing with the church. 
Already parliament had declared in the Statutes of Provisors 
and Praemunire (p. 143) that the pope should not control the 
appointments of the clergy in England, and that no English- 
man should appeal from the king's courts to the pope. But so 



1398] RICHARD AND PARLIAMENT. 161 

persistent had been the efforts of the clergy to evade these 
statutes and so willing had the king been to neglect them, that 
up to this time they had never been really enforced. In 1390 
a second Statute of Provisors was passed, which declared that 
the pope could have no control over any appointment to bene- 
fices whatever. In 1393 a second Statute of Praemunire de- 
clared that the pope could not annul any judgment of the 
king's court, hear any appeals from England, excommunicate 
bishops or "any other of the king's liege people," or send 
" sentences of excommunication, bulls, instruments, or any- 
thing else whatsoever which touched the king, against him, his 
crown, and his regality." 

In the third place, parliament sought to abolish a practice 
which had become widespread among the nobility, namely, the 
practice of maintaining bodies of retainers, often sufficient in 
number to form almost a petty army. This practice had be- 
come common after 1290, when the statute Quia Emptores for- 
bade subinfeudation. To supply the place of the subtenants, 
who by their tenure had been obliged to do military services 
for their lords, the dukes and earls had gathered about them men 
whom they hired to fight their battles. These men wore the 
lord's livery, and were fed at his expense; and their brawls 
were frequent sources of trouble. Ineffective attempts had 
been made to prevent this practice by Edward III, by the 
Good Parliament, and now by the parliament of Richard II in 
1390, but the evil was to be swept away only during the wars 
of the next century. 

3. From 1389 to 1397 Richard ruled with moderation and 
prudence, avoiding extravagance and war, and aiding in the 
passage of laws useful to the nation at large. In 1396 his first 
wife died, and two years after, Richard married the daughter of 
the king of France. While in France he observed the abso- 
lutism of the French king and the extravagance of the French 
court, and on his return he determined to put again into practice 
his theory of absolutism. The character of the government 
changed. By the parliament of 1398 at Shrewsbury, a packed 



152 



END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 



[1398 



body, the acts of the parliaments of 1387-1388 were annulled, 
ordinances of the king were declared to have the force of 
statutes, and a duty on wool and hides was granted to the king 




From a photograph. 
Conway Castle, on the Left Bank of the Conway River 

IN Wales, 
It was built in 1284 by Edward I to help keep down the Welsh. 

for life. Thus Eichard became independent of parliament and 
practically absolute. 

163. Deposition of Richard II. — This policy aroused the op- 
position of a party of nobles that found a leader in Henry 
Bolingbroke, son of the king's uncle, John of Gaunt. At first 
Bolingbroke had found favor with his cousin Richard. But 
in 1398 he had been banished by the king without apparent 
cause. This act, coupled with Richard's seizure of the lands 



1399] DEPOSITION OF RICHAED II. 153 

of John of Gaunt, after the latter's death in 1399, turned 
Bolingbroke, now duke of Lancaster, against the king. When, 
therefore, in 1399, Richard unwisely left England to drive 
back the Celts, who were encroaching on the English settle- 
ments in Ireland, Henry landed in Yorkshire and quickly 
gathered the malcontents about him. Eichard, returning from 




The Parliament which deposed Richard II. 

From an old manuscript of the fourteenth century, in Jusserand's 

English Wayfaring Life. 

Ireland, was captured at Conway Castle, in Wales, and realizing 
that the lords, the church, and the nation were against him, 
abdicated his throne. In the presence of parliament the act of 
deposition was read, and the throne was declared vacant, not 
because the king had governed badly, as had Edward II, but 
because he had tried to become an absolute monarch and so had 
broken the law. Absolute monarchy was contrary to law in 
England in 1399. When Richard had been declared deposed, 
Henry of Lancaster claimed the crown in a speech delivered in 
English instead of in French, the court language under the 
Angevins, and parliament recognized the claim. In so doing 



154 END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. [1399 

it passed by the earl of Marcli, descended through his grand- 
mother from the second son of Edward III, in favor of Henry IV, 
son of the third son.^ The victory of parliament was a step 
backward in favor of the old order of things instead of a step 
forward toward an understanding of the new conditions that 
were prevailing among the English people. It was the victory 
of the nobility and not of the nation. 

164. General Survey. — The last years of the fourteenth and 
the first years of the fifteenth centuries bring us to a signifi- 
cant turning point in the history of England. The Middle 
Ages had passed away, but everywhere traces of mediaeval 
institutions and social traditions were to be seen. The most 
powerful men in the country were the great lords possessing 
retinues, fortified castles, family traditions and names, control- 
ling government, opposing monarchy, and warring with each 
other, an artificial feudal class. On the other hand, represen- 
tative not of the past, but of the future, were the towns, already 
entering upon a new commercial and artisan life, the free- 
holders, already the yeomanry of England, and the villeins, well 
advanced in their progress toward freedom. The reign of 
Richard and the reigns of the Lancastrian kings show these 
classes breaking through the crust of medisevalism and push- 
ing forward to greater prominence in the life and government 
of the nation. The factional quarrels of the nobility fore- 
shadowed the feudal death grapple of the Wars of the Roses ; 
the growth of the towns made possible a native English com- 
merce ; the rise of the yeomanry and the release of the villeins 
from bondage looked forward to a new agriculture and a new 

1 Henry in his claim asserted that he had the better hereditary title, because 
he was descended from Edmund of Lancaster, who, according to a story 
current at the time, was the eldest son of Henry III. Later writers, trying to 
make good the title of the Lancastrians, argued that the York title, derived 
through the house of March, was less sound than that of Lancaster, because 
the earl of March was the son of the daughter of Lionel, duke of Clarence, 
while with the Lancastrians the male line was unbroken. But Henry IV did 
not make this claim in 1399. The Lancastrians' hereditary right was not dis- 
puted by the Yorkists until 1460. 



1399] GENERAL SUEVEY. 155 

system of labor and gave to the nation a new social class no 
longer bound to the soil and unprotected by the courts. Eng- 
land was in the midst of a great social and economic revolution ; 
but none were more ignorant of this fact than the selfish 
and turbulent nobility, who under Richard and the Lancas- 
trians were the political leaders of England. Almost the only 
progress that took place during this period was among the 
lower and less conspicuous classes of the people. 



CHAPTER XI. 

END OP FEUDALISM: THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 

165. Henry IV. — Henry Bolingbroke, duke of Lancaster, 
claimed the throne partly by hereditary title, but still more, 
as he said, because " the realm was in point to be undone for 
default of governance and undoing of good laws." Parlia- 
ment in accepting him as king was undoubtedly influenced by 
the hereditary claim, but it was moved much more by the 
desire to have a king who should not play the absolute mon- 
arch, but should be dependent on parliament for his authority. 

Henry was the first jMrliamentary king in English history ; 
but he represented the conservative and aristocratic portion 
of parliament rather than the knights and burgesses, the party 
of the future. He was himself mediaeval in policy : an up- 
holder of the temporal power of the church, hostile to the 
Lollards, and a stanch supporter of the feudal prerogatives of 
the feudal lords in all that concerned their relations with their 
freeholders and villeins. Though his accession as king gave 
to parliament a great opportunity to extend its authority and 
influence, yet it did not aid in the least degree the emancipa- 
tion of the peasant or the Lollard. Progress in this particular 
was hardly perceptible ; neither king nor parliament did any- 
thing to hasten it. 

166. Conspiracies against the King. — The choice of parlia- 
ment did not by any means find unanimous support in Eng- 
land, and during Henry's early years as king attempts were 
made to dethrone him. At the very beginning of the reign 
a conspiracy of Richard's kinsmen was suppressed and the 
conspirators executed. After Richard's death in January, 
1400, his adherents turned to Edmund, earl of March (1391- 

156 



1403] 



PERSECUTION OF THE LOLLARDS. 



157 



1425), a youth of ten years, whom Richard had designated as 
his successor, and began a revolt in the north, where the Percys, 
of whom the earl of 
Northumberland was 
the head, ruled as 
practically independ- 
ent feudal lords. 
Acting in conjunction 
with the Welsh, who 
had always been de- 
voted to Richard, the 
Percys advanced 
southward, but were 
defeated at Shrews- 
bury on the Welsh 
border (1403). There 
Henry Percy (Hot- 
spur) was killed. 
Hotspur's father, 
Northumberland, 
again conspired, but 
the conspiracy was 
betrayed and he was 
slain. Through the 
failure of these con- 
spiracies Henry's position toward the end of his reign be- 
came more secure. 

167. Persecution of the Lollards. — Henry was supported in 
the main by the higher clergy, whose interests he had promised 
to respect and who deemed him the defender of the church 
against the Lollards. The lower clergy were generally hostile, 
the friars hated the usurper and preached disloyalty to the 
people ; the monks aided in hatching plots and creating turbu- 
lence among the peasantry. The age was one of great religious 
doubt and uncertainty as to what to do and think. Men did 
not know where to look for authority, either in church or state. 




Henry IV. 

From a portrait — artist unknown — in the 

National Portrait Gallery, London. 



158 



END OF FEUDALISM. 



[1413 



The great Christian church was divided by a schism, and for 
a part of the period three popes existed; men's minds were in 

great confusion, and 
those who followed 
the heretical teach- 
ings of Wiclif in- 
creased in number. 

King and arch- 
bishop were at one in 
their opinion of the 
Lollard heretics. 
Henry upheld the 
church in the perse- 
cution of them and 
aided the bishops to 
suppress them by 
force. The parlia- 
ment of 1401 passed 
a statute authorizing 
the burning of here- 
tics, the first law 
passed in England for 
the suppression of re- 
ligious opinions. Ac- 
cording to this statute 
the sheriffs, mayors, 
and bailiffs were to 
carry out the sen- 
tence of the ecclesias- 
tical courts in the case 




Henky v. 

From a portrait — artist unknown — in the 

National Portrait Gallery, London. 

The "Prince Hal" of Shakespeare ; there is 
no authority for Shakespeare's characteri- 
zation, as King Henry was a sober and dig- 
nified monarch. 



of heretics. There is nothing to show that the Lollards en- 
gaged in any plots against the government in this period, but 
in the next reign they became offenders against the state as 
well as against the church. 

168. Henry V. — In 1413 Henry IV died, leaving the crown 
without opposition to the Prince of Wales, who ascended the 



1418] PARLIAMENT UNDER THE LANCASTRIANS. 159 

throne on May 20 as Henry V. The traditions that Prince 
Hal's early years were a time of rioting and dissipation are 
mainly the exaggerations of later writers, for the prince as 
king showed a sobriety and dignity of demeanor wholly at 
variance with the account that Shakespeare has given of him 
and Falstaff. He had already directed affairs during the ill- 
ness of his father, and had shown his military ability in the 
many battles that his father had been called upon to fight. 
He was possessed of nobility of character, considerable learn- 
ing, and gracious manners. His life was a brilliant one, but 
his ambitions were injurious to England, and his statesmanship 
was of a distinctly inferior type. He was a warrior, but his 
eyes were turned to the past rather than to the future ; he 
believed that it was a holy obligation to aid in religious perse- 
cution and to continue the war against France. 

169. Persecution and Decline of the Lollards. — Under Rich- 
ard II the Lollards had generally recanted; under Henry IV 
they had become martyrs for their faith ; under Henry V they 
were not only heretics but revolutionists also. The chief 
Lollard of the time was Sir John Oldcastle, a soldier and a 
scholar, '' who openly encouraged the sectarian preachers on 
his estate and in his castle." He was condemned as a heretic 
and handed over to the secular power " to do him thereupon to 
death" (1413). Oldcastle escaped, and for four years became 
the supposed leader of a Lollard conspiracy against the king. 
He was charged with aiding the Welsh and negotiating with 
the Scots. Finally, in 1418, Oldcastle was captured, hanged 
as a traitor, and afterward his body was burned because he 
had been a heretic. From this time forward Lollardry became 
a faith only for the poorer classes. Those who were burnt 
were generally parish priests or lowly persons. During the 
Wars of the Eoses there is little evidence of activity among 
the Lollards. 

170. Position of Parliament under the Lancastrians. — The 
many conspiracies under Henry IV, and the war with France 
under Henry V, made the reigns of the Lancastrians burden- 



160 END OF FEUDALISM. [1414 

some and expensive, and, dependent as they were upon parlia- 
ment for their title, they were increasingly dependent on it 
because of their constant need of money. The constitution of 
the kingdom was taking definite shape : the king, with wide 
powers; his officials, chancellor, treasurer, and secretaries or 
royal clerks, with functions well understood ; the council or 
body of the king's advisers, nineteen or twenty in number, 
advising the king upon every exercise of the royal power and 
during this period acting as a very important factor in the 
government of the state; lastly, parliament, meeting yearly, 
and endeavoring to cooperate with the king in bringing about 
good government, but without much success, for until the 
Wars of the Roses had ended the great nobles were the leaders 
in the council, in parliament, and in local affairs. 

Parliament attempted to do many things. It tried to con- 
trol the selection of the king's council, to audit the public 
accounts, to impeach bad ministers, and to pass good laws. It 
did control taxation and made good its demand that redress of 
grievances sJioxdd precede a grant of supplies. It asked that the 
parliamentary privileges of its members be recognized, that 
they should not be held responsible for what they said in 
parliament, and that their petitions be speedily answered by 
the king. In 1407 Henry IV agreed that money bills should 
originate in the House of Commons ; in 1414 Henry V prom- 
ised not to alter a petition without the consent of the House, a 
promise which had it always been kept would have made a 
petition almost the same as a bill such as we have to-day ; in 
1433 it was determined that a statute to be law should be 
issued not by the king or by the king and the House of Lords, 
but by the whole parliament. On account of the interference 
of the nobility in the elections of knights and burgesses, im- 
portant statutes were passed defining who should be elected 
and by whom, and declaring that all local elections must be 
"free." Many other well-intentioned statutes were passed, 
which were to have an important influence as precedents at a 
later time. But under the Lancastrians there existed no 



1420] RENEWAL OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 161 

strong king or minister to enforce these laws, and they were not 
carried out. Parliamentary government under the Lancastrians 
was a failure ; the great lords who had placed the king under 
the law were not willing to submit to the law themselves, 

171. Renewal of the Hundred Years' War. — England and 
France had been at war almost incessantly since 1337. The 
treaty of Bretigny and the truces agreed to after 1360, had 
not brought about permanent peace. That which Edward III, 
the Black Prince, and John of Gaunt had done Henry V con- 
tinued, and his military deeds rivaled Crecy and Poitiers. In 
1414 he revived the English claims to the lost provinces in the 
south of France, and in 1415 demanded the crown of France 
itself. Both demands were, of course, rejected, and in 1415 
Henry, with six thousand archers and two thousand men-at- 
arms, landed on the coast of Normandy. Though his force 
was depleted by pestilence, he resolved to march to Calais, 
through the enemy's country. (See Map, p. 78.) At Agin- 
court he was confronted by the French army, four times as 
large as his own. Through incredible blunders on the part of 
the French, Henry won a famous victory, which increased 
immeasurably the prestige of the English archer and decreased 
the value of the heavily armed feudal knight. Henry returned 
to England in triumph, and was received by the people with 
demonstrations of joy. The battle of Agincourt (October 25, 
1415) repaid England for the losses she had suffered since 
Bretigny, and increased the war fever at home. 

In 1417 Henry invaded France for the second time, and 
during the year and a half that followed became the master of 
all Normandy. Such unprecedented victory was possible only 
because of the wars between the parties in France, factional 
quarrels similar to the Wars of the Eoses in England. A 
treaty was concluded at Troyes (1420) according to which 
Henry was recognized as the heir of the French king, whose 
daughter was given to him in marriage. 

But the Dauphin,^ refusing thus to be deprived of his in- 

1 Title of the eldest son of the kmg of France. 



162 



END OF FEUDALISM. 



[1422 



heritance, defeated the English during the absence of Henry in 
1421. For a third time Henry returned to France, where he 

succumbed to a great- 
er conqueror than 
the Dauphin. On 
August 31, 1422, 
Henry died at Vin- 
cennes, leaving a son 
but nine months old 
heir to the throne. 
He also left a war 
which never ought to 
have been begun and 
one that England was 
quite unable to carry 
to a successful issue. 
Henry V spent al- 
most his entire reign 
in an effort to prolong 
the life of worn-out 
institutions and to 
put in practice worn- 
out ideas. 

172. End of the 
Hundred Years' War: 
Joan of Arc. — By a 
curious coincidence 
Charles VI of France 
died in the same year 
with Henry V of 
England, and the young nine-months-old Henry VI, according 
to the terms of the treaty of Troyes (1420), became king of 
France, with his uncle, the duke of Bedford, as regent. His 
title was acknowledged in northern France, and for the first 
six years Bedford succeeded in maintaining and continuing 
the conquests. Maine was reduced and the Loire region oc- 




Henry VI. 
From a portrait — artist unknown — in 
Eton College, which he founded. 
Although the English kings since Edward III 
had claimed to be kings of both England and 
France, Henry VI was the only English king 
ever crowned in France with that title. 



1431] 



END OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 



163 



cupied. In 1428 the English laid siege to Orleans. The 
fortunes of the Dauphin, Charles VII, who had refused to 
acknowledge Henry's 
claim, never seemed 
at a lower ebb than 
in 1428, when there 
took place one of the 
most extraordinary 
occurrences in his- 
tory. Joan of Arc, a 
village maid of Dom- 
remy, in Champagne, 
presented herself be- 
fore Charles, and de- 
clared that she had 
been divinely sent to 
rescue France. Ac- 
cepted by the king as 
a last hope, she suc- 
ceeded in raising the 
siege of Orleans and 
in turning the tide of 
English success. On 
May 17, 1429, Charles 
VII was crowned at 
E-heims. 

The appearance of the Maid of Orleans roused in an extraor- 
dinary way the patriotism of the French. Little by little the 
English were driven back, until scarcely more than Normandy, 
Picardy, and Maine were left in their hands. In 1430 the 
Maid, unhorsed in a sudden onset, was captured by Philip of 
Burgundy, who supported the cause of Henry VI. Philip sold 
her for ten thousand crowns to the English. After imprison- 
ment and an unworthy trial, she was burned as a witch at 
Rouen (1431). The shame of this deed belongs to the duke 
of Bedford and to the heartless Charles VII, who raised not 




Frotn a photograph. 
Dubois' Statue of Joan op Aec in Front 

OP THE CaTHEDKAL AT RhEIMS, FkANCB. 



164 END OF FEUDALISM. [1442 

a finger to save the heroine who had made him king of 
France. 

For twenty years Henry VI struggled to retain his hold 
upon his remaining French possessions, but by 1453 all that 
he had gained by his brilliant career of conquest was gone 
without hope of recovery. 

173. Attempts of the Nobles to control the King. — At his 
father's death, in 1422, Henry VI was but an infant, and for 
twenty years England suffered a continuance of the factional 
quarrels that had been to a certain degree controlled by 
Henry IV and Henry V. In 1442 Henry VI took the reins 
of government into his own hands, but he proved to be wholly 
incapable of governing and ruled chiefly through favorites. 
The first favorite was the earl of Suffolk, who negotiated 
the marriage, unfortunate for England, between Henry and 
Margaret of Anjou. Later he was charged with the failure 
of the French war, impeached for treason, and murdered when 
he tried to escape. The duke of Somerset became the new 
favorite, and his chief opponent was Richard, duke of York, 
descended from the second and fourth sons of Edward III. 
Legally the house of York had a better hereditary title than 
the house of Lancaster, though probably the question would 
never have been raised had not Henry VI been a weak king, 
and Margaret of Anjou a headstrong partisan. 

174. Popular Discontent: Cade's Rebellion. — The popular dis- 
content aroused by this selfish strife between the nobles is 
evident from what is known as Cade's rebellion. This move- 
ment was participated in by men of gentle rank as well as 
yeomen, by merchants, craftsmen, boatmen, and laborers, a 
few of the clergy, and local of&cials. It was purely political 
in character and was in the interest of those who were opposed 
to the existing government, notably in the interest of the duke 
of York, who from selfish or other motives had at this time 
come forward as the representative of the popular cause. 
More particularly it was a protest against the squandering of 
the king's revenues, the heavy taxes, due to the wars, the 



1454] THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 165 

oppression by the sheriffs, the corruption of officials, the ap- 
pointment of debased judges, the interference of the nobility 
in the elections, and the loss of France, which ruined the 
maritime trade and diminished the export of wool and cloths 
into Flanders. 

Under a captain of Kent, who called himself Mortimer, 
cousin of the duke of York, but who is better known as Jack 
Cade, the men of Kent rose in military fashion, as if duly 
summoned by the constables. They advanced to Blackheath 
and presented their grievances to the king. On June 18, 1450, 
a battle was fought at Sevenoaks, where the king's troops were 
defeated. Henry yielded to the rebels and dismissed certain 
obnoxious officials. The rebels occupied London, but eventually 
they were got out of the city and, receiving letters of pardon 
from the king, dispersed to their homes. Cade was afterward 
captured and executed. 

175. The Wars of the Roses ^ : First Period (1450-1460). — The 
uprising of Cade was clearly a protest against the Lancastrian 
government, and in the interest of that party which was opposed 
to the ministers about Henry VI. Of this party the head was 
Richard, duke of York, who in 1424, after the death of his 
uncle, the earl of March, had become heir to the throne. From 
1450 to 1453 the rivalry between York and Somerset continued 
until a series of events occurred which turned the balance in 
favor of York. In 1453 Guienne, the last territory in France, 
was lost, and in consequence Somerset was disgraced and im- 
prisoned. Then Henry VI became insane and a regency was 
necessary. And lastly, the queen, Margaret of Anjou, gave 
birth to a son, an event which destroyed York's claim to the 
throne, but made it easier for the friends of the king to accept 
York's leadership. In 1454 the duke of York was proclaimed 
by parliament the Protector of the kingdom. 

iTbe badge of the house of Lancaster was the red rose, that of the house of 
York the white rose ; hence the name, " Wars of the Roses." The wars were 
not continuous campaigns, but a series of bloody battles after each of which the 
victorious side controlled the government. 



166 END OF FEUDALISM. [1460 

Unfortunately the king recovered, and Queen Margaret, self- 
willed and headstrong, determined to drive out the duke of 
York, who was threatening to dominate at court where she had 
ruled for years. York was dismissed, Somerset released, and 
once more the Lancastrians were in full control. Then York 
determined to gain power by force. Withdrawing to the north, 
he gathered to himself the earls of Salisbury and Warwick, and 
attacked the forces of the king and Somerset at St. Albans, in 
1455. The Yorkists were successful and Somerset was slain. 

Four years passed without actual fighting ; part of the time the 
king was insane and York was again declared Protector, part of 
the time the king governed alone. Each year the condition of the 
kingdom became worse, and in 1459 a trivial quarrel between 
the servants of the opposing factions brought on civil war. 

176. The Wars of the Roses: Second Period. The Yorkists claim 
the Crown. — Thus far the war had been in the main a struggle 
of one party of the nobility to improve the government of the 
kingdom and to remove from the side of the kinghis bad advisers. 
From this time, however, it became a deliberate attempt on' the 
part of the Yorkists to seize the crown as their right. The 
latter, as in the rebellion of Jack Cade, found their support in 
the towns and among the yeomanry. The first battle was fought 
at Northampton on July 10, 1460, where the Yorkists were 
victorious. The king was captured, and great numbers of Lan- 
castrian knights and nobles were slain. 

The duke of York now made a formal demand for the crown, 
basing his claim upon his legitimate title as the eldest heir of 
Edward III, through his mother, Anne Mortimer, sister of that 
Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, whose claim was set aside 
when Henry IV became king. The Lancastrians had the 
recognition of parliament and the right of possession. As Henry 
VI said, " My father was king ; his father also was king ; I my- 
self have worn the crown forty years from my cradle ; you have 
all sworn fealty to me as your sovereign and your fathers have 
done the same to mine. How then can my right be disputed ? " 
The granting of York's claim meant the deposition of Henry 



1467] THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 167 

VI and to this extreme the lords were unwilling to go. A com* 
promise was reached whereby it was agreed that Henry should 
retain the crown for life and that Richard of York should be 
his heir. But Queen Margaret refused to surrender the rights 
of her son, and gathered about her the nobles of the north, where 
lay the strength of the Lancastrian party. Supported by the 
Percys, the Nevilles, and other border barons, she met the York- 
ist forces at Wakefield and won a victory in which Richard of 
York himself was slain, 1460. The Lancastrians displayed 
great ferocity, and scores of the Yorkist leaders were killed. 

Civil war was now in full swing. The young Edward, earl 
of March, now duke of York, took up his father's cause and 
defeated the Lancastrians at Mortimer's Cross on February 2, 
1461. Edward of York, though not crowned, proclaimed him- 
self king at a council of lords and the commons of the city. 
There was no recognition by parliament; Edward based his 
title solely on hereditary right. From now on the object of 
the war was to maintain the title thus proclaimed. Edward 
and the earl of Warwick, gathering their forces, hastened 
northward and, meeting the Lancastrians at Towton (March 29, 
1461), fought a fierce battle on a bleak hillside during a blind- 
ing snowstorm. The Lancastrians were defeated with such a 
slaughter of the northern nobles that people said the slain 
numbered twenty-eight thousand men. The duel was to the 
death between the two great feudal parties. 

177. The Wars of the Roses: Third Period (1461-1471). 
Struggle of Edward IV to maintain his Crown. — Edward was 
crowned at London on June 30, 1461, and his title was at last 
recognized by parliament as just. For four years he and 
Warwick ruled together — the one as king, the other as the 
real power behind the throne. Finally, Edward wearied of 
Warwick's control and determined to be king himself, in fact 
as well as in name. He thwarted Warwick's plans by a 
romantic marriage with Elizabeth Woodville, who was not of 
noble blood, and in 1467 dismissed Warwick from office. 

Then Warwick, around whom as "kingmaker" and "the 



168 



END OF FEUDALISM 



[1467 



last of tlie barons" romance lias thrown an undeserved halo, 
conspired against the king. Allying with himself King 
Edward's younger brother, he became reconciled to the queen, 
Margaret of Anjou, and bound himself to aid in restoring 
Henry VI. Devoid of principle and loyal only to his own 




From a photograph. 
Warwick Castle. 

One of the oldest and stateliest feudal residences in England. There has 
probably been a feudal castle on the site since Saxon times, but the oldest 
part of the present castle, the so-called Csesar's Tower, dates from the 
Norman period. 

ambitions,^ the "kingmaker" did what many another of the 
nobility had done at this time — gave his services to the cause 
which promised the greatest reward. King Edward was taken 
unawares. Warwick, aided by the gold of Louis XI of France, 
entered England, and the king, deserted by his followers, was 
compelled to flee for safety to his brother-in-law, the duke of 



1 Warwick was of royal blood, being cousin to the king ; he was not, how- 
ever, a statesman, but the leader of a faction of the great feudal nobles, and 
he did not ri§e above his party. 



1471] EDWARD IV AS KING. 169 

Burgundy, in October, 1470. Henry VI was restored. But 
the Lancastrian success lasted for less than six months. In 
March, 1471, Edward, aided in his turn by the wealth of the 
duke of Burgundy, returned and marching toward London 
met Warwick and the Lancastrians at Barnet, and won a de- 
cisive victory. To the lasting benefit of England, Warwick 
was slain, and with him other Lancastrian leaders. Important 
though the victory was, Edward had still to reckon with 
Margaret of Anjou, who had just landed at Weymouth, in 
England. The final engagement took place at Tewkesbury, 
and again Edward won the day. The young Prince of 
Wales, Margaret's son, was slain, it is said, by Richard, earl 
of Gloucester, King Edward's brother. Scarcely a Lancastrian 
noble survived the battle and the vengeance of the Yorkists. 
Even the old King Henry was put to death in the Tower, 
probably at the instigation of King Edward himself. 

A terrible fate had fallen on the Lancastrian house ; not a 
member remained to thwart the policy of the Yorkist king. 
Edward now entered upon the last period of his reign, which 
was in the main peaceful. 

178. Edward IV as King. — The Lancastrians had been to a 
considerable extent dependent on parliament, so that during 
their reigns parliament had outwardly at least held a strong 
position. But the Yorkist kings owed nothing to parliament. 
Edward IV reigned by hereditary right, and he declared that 
all statutes passed under the Lancastrians were void, because the 
kings were not rightful kings, though he never took the posi- 
tion of Richard II that the king was above the law. He had 
an exceptional opportunity to create a strong executive and to 
reform the government, for he met with almost no opposition. 
The great lords, who had resisted Richard II and controlled 
the Lancastrians, no longer existed to oppose the crown ; coun- 
cil and parliament consequently lost the position they had 
had under the Lancastrians — the council became the servant 
of the king, and parliament meeting but seven times in twenty- 
five years (1460-1485), raised no voice against the royal policy. 



170 END OF FEUDALISM. [1471 

Many of the sessions of parliament were barren sessions, and 
it has been said that Edward's reign was the first since statute 
law began in which not a single enactment was made for in- 
creasing or securing the liberty of the subject. 

In many matters Edward made himself independent of 
parliament by compelling the wealthy to contribute loans or 
free gifts called benevolences, which with the monej?" obtained 
from the confiscated Lancastrian estates gave him ample finan- 
cial means. Yet, notwithstanding the favorable position thus 
given the king, Edward never became a national leader, using 
his powers for the benefit of England. He was stili a party 
head, seeking to enrich himself and to place his own and his 
wife's relatives in places of power. Only in matters of in- 
dustry and commerce did he seem to consider the welfare of 
the people. 

179. Industry and Commerce. — Popular sympathy had been 
with Edward generally during the long struggle, and he in 
return did a great deal to promote the welfare of the burgher 
and commercial classes. As early as 1463 parliament had for- 
bidden the importation of foreign corn into England, hoping in 
that way to improve the condition of the farming classes. 
Later it had prohibited the importation of foreign manu- 
factured goods into England, that an interest in manufacturing 
might spring up at home. Parliament regulated the manu- 
facture of cloth and it discouraged the exportation of wool, 
that the weavers might not be deprived of material for their 
work. On the commercial side, Edward arranged treaties with 
Denmark, Burgundy, and the Hanse towns,^ encouraged ship- 
ping, built up the navy, and began the restoration of England's 

1 The Hanseatic League was composed of eighty North German and Scandi- 
navian towns, organized about 1300 to protect trade. For three centuries the 
League was one of the powers of Europe, and the Hanse tlag floated over 
nearly every merchant ship in the northern seas. It established colonies or 
"factories" in foreign cities, among others in London. Edward's interest in 
the League is due to the fact that in 1470 it joined with the Flemish and 
Dutch corporations to persuade Edward's brother-in-law, the duke of Bur- 
gundy, to aid the king to recover his throne. 



1483] USUEPATION OF RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER. 171 

control of the adjoining waters, and in so doing prepared tlie 
way for the expansion of England's commerce and sea-power 
during the reign of the Tudors. To the people at large the 
king's attention to their industrial and commercial prosperity 
entirely compensated for the infrequent summons of parliament. 

180. Edward's Character and Death. — Edward was a man of 
energy and ability and of great military sagacity, but he was 
vicious and cruel, idle and self-indulgent. He had no large 
ideas of government, and made no effort to improve adminis- 
tration, either central or local. There was less corruption at 
court than there had been, but in the country districts murders 
and robberies were prevalent. Edward lived a hard life, and 
died in 1483, at the early age of forty-one. He left three chil- 
dren, two boys and a girl, a prey to the factions that he himself 
had scarcely been able to control. The eldest of the children, 
a boy of thirteen, succeeded him as Edward V, with the late 
king's brother, Richard of Gloucester, regent during the lad's 
minority. 

181. Usurpation of Richard of Gloucester. — As an ally of 
Edward IV, Richard of Gloucester had shown himself a strong 
military leader and a faithful associate in the war against the 
Lancastrians. But he lived at a time when men were cruel 
and unscrupulous, ready to resort to acts of vengeance in order 
to overthrow their enemies and to attain their ambitions, 

Richard with all his ability seems to have been in no way 
different from his brother, or from others who had been guilty 
of deeds of merciless brutality. He was charged with having 
murdered the son of Henry VI after the battle of Tewkesbury, 
and with having stabbed Henry himself in the Tower. Now, 
as regent, he filled the measure of his evil deeds by slaying the 
nobles who were faithful to the young king and by putting out 
of the way the heirs to the throne. Declaring that the mar- 
riage between Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville had been 
invalid ^ and that their children were consequently illegitimate, 

1 The reasons were these : no banns had been published, the service had 
been performed in a profane (unconsecrated) place, a private chamber, and 



172 



END OF FEUDALISM. 



[1483 



he- caused the king and the king's brother, the duke of York, 
to be seized and imprisoned in the Tower, Parliament pro- 
claimed Richard king 
on June 25, and on 
July 6 caused him to 
be crowned. During 
the summer or au- 
tumn of 1483. the 
princes^ were put to 
death in the Tower. 
History has laid the 
crime at the feet of 
Richard, and there is 
no good reason to 
doubt the truth of the 
verdict. But the facts 
were not at first 
known, and Eichard 
was able for a time to 
retain his hold upon 
the people. 

182. Richard III.— 
Eichard was de- 
formed in body, but 
brilliant in mind. For 
a year -he ruled with 
no little wisdom, 
aiming evidently at strengthening his position by making 
friends with all classes. He concluded a truce with Scotland, 
entered into amicable arrangements with Burgundy and the 
papacy, released prisoners, and conciliated influential nobles 




Richard III. 

From a portrait — artist unknown — in the 

National Portrait Gallery, London. 



the king had already plighted his troth to Dame Eleanor Butteler, daughter 
of the earl of Shrewsbury. According to the idea of the time, troth-plight 
was deemed as binding as a legal marriage. 

1 Edward V, who had been proclaimed king but had not been crowned, and 
his brother, the duke of York. 



1485] RICHARD III. 173 

by lavish grants and important offices. He continued. Edward 
IV's policy of forbidding foreign imports and strengthening 
the navy, but the only parliament that he summoned put an 
end, for the time being, to "benevolences" as a new and dan- 
gerous imposition, the exaction of which by Edward IV was not 
to stand as an example for the future. Nevertheless, " benev- 
olences" appear again in the next reign sanctioned by act of 
parliament. 

Eichard, as well as his brother, Edward IV, was a patron of 
literature. In 1476 Caxton^ had brought the first printing 
press to England, and 'under the patronage of Edward and 
Richard he printed many old English poems, including an 
edition of Chaucer. To encourage literature Richard removed 
the duties on books, and during his reign we have for the first 
time statutes enrolled in English instead of in French.^ 

But Richard's popularity steadily decreased and his sup- 
porters deserted him. Before October, 1484, a conspiracy had 
been formed against him, under the headship of Henry Tudor, 
earl of Richmond, who, through his mother, was descended 
from John of Gaunt. Richard struggled to maintain his posi- 
tion, but misfortune after misfortune came upon him. His 
son died in 1484, his wife in 1485. To strengthen his posi- 
tion he arranged with his sister-in-law to marry his own niece, 
Elizabeth of York, sister of the murdered princes, but in June 
of this year Richmond landed at Milford Haven, and Richard 
knew that his cause was lost. On Bosworth Field he was 
defeated and slain, and Richmond was proclaimed king as 
Henry VII. The Wars of the Roses were over, and for Eng- 
land the Middle Ages had ended. 

1 William Caxton was a Kentishman, who spent thirty years in Flanders as 
a copyist for Margaret of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV and Richard III. 
There he learned the art of printing, and upon his return to England, he set 
up the first English press at Westminster. Caxton also translated many for- 
eign classics into English, and did much to give England a standard of English 
speech. 

2 The formula by which the king to-day expresses his assent or dissent 
from a bill is still in French : Le Boy le veult or Le Roy s'advisera. 



174 END OF FEUDALISM. [1486 

183. The Results of the Wars. — The Wars of the Roses had 
been a duel to the death between the great baronial families. 
In every case the victor had followed up the successful battle 
with vindictive cruelty, putting to death all those who fell into 
his hands. Those who were not killed in battle were, if cap- 
tured, executed without mercy. After Towton nearly fifty 
Lancastrians of noble rank were beheaded, and after Tewkes- 
bury many others of the same party suffered a like fate. In 
1485 scarcely a Lancastrian of high rank was living, and even 
among the Yorkists many a family had lost its leading mem- 
bers. This meant that the factional family strife which had 
existed in one form or another for a century was over, and that 
feudalism as a political influence in England was dead. 

184. Social and Economic Changes : Decline of Villeinage. — • 
During the time that the Wars of the Roses were completing 
the downfall of feudalism, bondage also was passing away. 
This was not due to the Black Death, the Peasants' Revolt, 
or the Wars of the Roses. The last-named conflict, except as 
it led to the ravaging and impoverishing of the country, prob- 
ably had but little influence upon the condition of the peas- 
antry. The decay of villeinage was due to the fact that the 
old methods of agriculture were too wasteful to exist under 
the new condition of industry and commerce. Even before 
the Wars of the Roses the old manorial system had almost 
completely broken down. Some of the villeins had been freed 
by their lords ; others had deserted the manors and had taken 
service in the army or navy, had attached themselves as re- 
tainers to the great barons, or had gone to the towns to become 
apprentices, to join the crews of merchant ships, or to become 
beggars and tramps. 

Still more important were the changes which had taken 
place upon the manors themselves. The lords, finding the 
old forms of cultivation Tinprofitable, had been giving up the 
direct control of their lands. They had been letting them out 
to their bailiffs or others, who paid the lord — now become a 
landlord — a fixed sum as rent. With this change had gone 



1485] ENCLOSURES. 175 

another. The villeins, ceasing to do actual work on the lords' 
land, paid a small amount of money instead ; the tenant who 
had held his land '' in villeinage, according to the custom of 
the manor," now gradually became a " copyholder," holding his 
land according to the terms written on the court roll of the 
manor. A copyholder was, therefore, simply a villein who had 
become a property owner, who knew exactly what were the 
terms on which he held his land, and who did little or no 
labor service. There still clung to him some of the incidents 
of villeinage,^ but one by one these all dropped away, until 
to-day copyhold land differs from freehold only in the way it 
is conveyed or transferred from one person to another. 

185. Enclosures. — While the villeins themselves were ceas- 
ing to be bondsmen and becoming copyholders, and the tenure 
by which they held their lands was becoming definite and cer- 
tain instead of dependent on the will of the lord, an important 
change was taking place in the arrangement and appearance of 
the open fields, the ploughed lands in the villages which had 
hitherto been divided into great unhedged fields, each sub- 
divided into narrow acre strips (p. 45). About 1450 landlords 
had discovered that sheep raising was more profitable than 
agriculture. The open field system was broken up, and the 
narrow strips were thrown together and hedged in, or enclosed} 
The arable land was converted into pasture, and great numbers 
of the customary tenants or villeins were turned out of their 
tenements. This process had only just, begun in 1485, when 
Henry of Richmond became king, but it continued during the 
next century, and though attempts were made to check it on 



1 The copyholder continued for many years to bear some of the marks of 
his villein origin, the most noteworthy of which was the portion of the vil- 
lein's property that the lord could take away at the villein's death, such, for 
example, as the best beast or its equivalent in money. 

2 Even before 1450 many lords had begun to enclose their homelands for the 
purpose of better farming methods. In the midland and north of England, 
where stock-raising had always been a feature, enclosures had concerned the 
pasture rather than the arable land. 



176 



END OF FEUDALISM. 



[1485 




1485] INCREASE OF FOREIGN TRADE. 177 

account of the great discontent and misery that it caused the 
evicted tenants, it went on into Elizabetli's reign. 

186. The Industrial Revolution : the New Towns. — Until the 
fifteenth century England had been a land in which agriculture 
was the main source of wealth, and the landowners, that is, 
the old feudal lords, were the most prominent people of the 
kingdom. But the fifteenth century saw the beginning of a 
great change. As agriculture ceased to be profitable, the 
feudal lords became land poor, and a new aristocracy arose, 
whose wealth lay in industrial and commercial undertakings. 
The growing importance of towns, trade, manufactures, and 
capital marks the entrance of England on her career as a 
commercial and industrial state. 

During the Middle Ages the centre of the industrial life 
had been the town ; and the town, not the central government, 
controlled all matters of trade and commerce. In consequence 
of the law of Richard II, which forbade aliens to buy or sell 
in England, the towns, under the control of the gilds, developed 
during the fifteenth century an exceedingly narrow and selfish 
system of regulating industry and trade. The Wars of the 
Eoses had left the craft gilds free to pursue their courses undis- 
turbed. The latter allowed no one to do business in the towns 
unless he were a member of one of the crafts, and regulated 
the details of the business with extraordinary minuteness and 
care. The severity of the regulations led to the downfall 
of the gilds. The old towns were outstripped by other towns 
in which the old gild restrictions did not exist. These new 
towns, such as Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield, 
eventually became the leading cities of the kingdom. 

187. Increase of Foreign Trade. — It was foreign trade that 
broke down the supremacy of the old towns and contributed 
to the prosperity of the new. Until the middle of the four- 
teenth century England, as has already been said (pp. 133, 
134), had furnished for export only raw materials, such as 
wool, wool-skins, leather, lead, and tin ; and at first the busi- 
ness of exporting these materials lay in the hands of strangers 



178 END OF FEUDALISM. [1485 

and not of Englishmen. It was an important step when Eng- 
lishmen, th& Merchant Staplers, began to do their own exporting 
of raw material, chiefly wool, to a staple town on the Conti- 
nent, such as Calais. It was a still more important step 
when, in the fifteenth century, England began to work up her 
own wool, instead of sending it to Flanders and elsewhere to 
be woven (p. 150). This home industry was bound to injure, 
and eventually to destroy, the business of the Staplers, because 
their supply of wool would thenceforth be utilized at home. 

In consequence of the new industry, a new body of merchants 
came into existence, exporting not raw wool, but manufactured 
cloths, and carrying their goods not to one fixed place, but 
" venturing " at first wherever they could find a market. These 
were called the Merchant Adventureis, and they boldly com- 
peted with foreign merchants in Holland, Spain, Venice, and 
other lands. At first separate towns sent out their fleets ; but 
later, individuals acting together in the form of stock com- 
panies carried on the business, until, at the end of the fifteenth 
century, half of the English cloths were carried in English ves- 
sels. The Merchant Adventurers, b}^ dealing in manufactured 
woollen cloths instead of raw wool, broke the power of the 
Merchant Staplers ; by doing their own carrying trade, they 
succeeded before 1500 in wresting the foreign commerce of 
England from the Hanseatic League in the Baltic and from 
the Venetians in the Mediterranean. By the reign of Henry 
VII they were carrying the greater part of England's exports 
in English vessels, and laying the foundation of England's 
greatness as a trading and commercial state. 

Thus we see that while the Wars of the Eoses effected the 
overthrow of the feudal nobility, they did not prevent a real 
progress from taking place among the other classes of the 
kingdom. In the downfall of villeinage, the self-reliance of 
the towns, the rise of manufacturing, and the growth of com- 
merce, we see the beginnings of a new English society. And 
the security which Henry VII brought to the English land after 
the confusion of the Wars of the Roses made permanent the 
advantages thus gained. 



CHAPTER XII, 

THE EARLY TUDORS : REFORMATION AND 
REACTION. 

188. The New Age. — The accession of Henry VII marks the 
beginning of a new era for England. Under the Tudors a 
more powerful England came into being, stronger within itself 
and more influential in its relations to the outside world. In- 
stead of the narrow local life of the manors and towns, there 
gradually appeared the larger life of the nation. Men began 
to take an interest not merely in the small affairs of their own 
locality, but in the larger affairs of the state as a whole. A new 
national pride enhanced the prestige of the monarchs, because 
in the greatness of their kings men saw the greatness of their 
state also. The Tudors catered to this growing national feel- 
ing, and king and people acting together started England on a 
career of steady development both at home and abroad. 

189. Henry's Claims to the Throne. — On his father's side 
Henry VII was the grandson of Owen Tudor, a prominent 
Welsh nobleman of the Lancastrian party; on his mother's 
side he was a great grandson of John of Gaunt, duke of Lan- 
caster, son of Edward III. He claimed the crown by hereditary 
right, a claim so unsubstantial that he found it wise to agree 
to a ratification of his title by parliament whereby the crown 
was settled on himself and his heirs. But he had other claims 
than this to the throne. He had conquered at Bosworth Field ; 
and on the field of battle Sir William Stanley had placed 
Richard's fallen crown on the head of Henry as the only re- 
maining representative of the Lancastrian line. Two months 
afterward he was crowned in London, at which time parliament 
passed the bill of ratification. In November the pope issued a 

179 



180 



THE EARLY TUDORS. 



[1485 



bull in his favor, and the next year he married Elizabeth of 
York, daughter of Edward IV, thus uniting the York and Lan- 
castrian houses. His 
marriage undoubted- 
ly greatly strength- 
ened his position, but 
he always refused to 
be king merely in 
right of his wife. 
But in spite of his 
many claims his posi- 
tion would have been 
insecure had he not 
been able to main- 
tain it. 

190. Henry's Char- 
acter. — In character 
Henry represented 
the old and the new 
eras. He favored the 
church, chose his 
ministers from 
among the clergy, and 
loved ecclesiastical 
culture and art, as 
the Chapel of Henry 
VII in Westminster 




Henry VII. 

The first of the Tudor kings. 
From a portrait — artist unknown — in 
the National Portrait Gallery, London. 



attests. On the other hand he was shrewd and thrifty, sus- 
picious and cautious, politic and stern. He asked advice of no 
one, except in great emergencies of his leading ministers. He 
disliked war, recognized the importance of the industrial and 
wealth-producing middle class, and knew the value of money 
and the usefulness of diplomacy. He made it his chief aim to 
reform and strengthen the government at home, and in foreign 
relations to give England a place in the councils of Europe. 
191. Conspiracies against Henry. — To make his position 



1494] 



CONSPIRACIES AGAINST HENRY. 



181 



more secure, Henry VII had imprisoned the Yorkist heir, Ed- 
ward, the nephew of Edward IV, but this did not save the king 
from attempts on the part of the Yorkist leaders to dethrone 
him. In 1487 Lambert Simnel, impersonating the imprisoned 
heir, raised a rebellion in Ireland which was supported by the 
whole Yorkist party, even including Elizabeth Woodville, the 




From a photograph. 
A Portion of the Chapel of Henry VII, Westminster Abbey. 

queen mother and Henry's mother-in-law. But Henry, acting 
quickly, defeated the insurgents, and capturing Simnel, con- 
temptuously made him a kitchen boy in his palace. 

In 1492 a more dangerous conspiracy was set on foot with 
a remarkable imposter, Perkin Warbeck, personating the 
younger of the two princes slain in the Tower. Warbeck's 
identity was accepted by the kings of Scotland and France, 
and the imposter was aided by Duchess Margaret of Burgundy, 
whom he claimed as his aunt. Warbeck was finally captured 
and hanged (1499). Henry retaliated upon Margaret by for- 
bidding (1494) all commerce with the Netherlands, which Mar- 
garet controlled, and by driving the Flemish from London. 



182 THE EARLY TUDORS. [1496 

For the sake of trade the Flemish merchants demanded peace 
with England, and a new treaty was agreed upon in 1496.^ 

192. Henry's Work. — During the fourteen years of struggle 
with the pretenders, Henry had never lost sight of the greater 
needs of the kingdom. 1. He strengthened the authority of 
the crown by extending the jurisdiction and power of the 
king's council and by employing parliament largely as a money- 
granting body. 2. He recognized the value of a well-filled 
treasury and sought to obtain money by means often of doubt- 
ful legitimacy. 3. He made England's name known abroad 
by favorable foreign alliances. 4. He advanced the general 
prosperity of the kingdom by encouraging commerce, agricul- 
ture, and, to a slight degree, colonization. 

193. I. Government. — To understand how the Tudor kings 
were able to gather so much political power in their hands we 
must realize that the people at large under Henry VII and his 
son Henry VIII had little interest in the actual business of 
government. New learning, new religious ideas, and growing 
prosperity wece attracting their minds more than politics. ■ So 
long as the Tudors governed fairly well and brought peace and 
prosperity to England, the people were content to leave the 
control of government in their hands. In fact, the " people " 
as such had thus far taken very little part in government and 
affairs of state. 

Henry VII governed, as had kings before him, through two 
bodies, the Privy Council and parliament, but these bodies, 
instead of controlling or warring with the king as they had 
done before, now supported and carried out his policy. 



1 The authority of the English king over Ireland was at its lowest point at 
the beginning of Henry's reign, which accounts for Ireland's share in the con- 
spiracies of Simnel and Warbeck. Henry punished Ireland in a manner des- 
tined to have a very important influence upon the relations between England 
and Ireland. He sent over there Sir Edward Poyning, who obtained from the 
Irish parliament an act known as Poyning's Law. This act provided that no 
Irish parliament should be summoned or act passed without the previous ap- 
proval of the English king. 



1487] THE COURT OF STAR CHAMBER. 183 

The King and the Privy Council. — Out of the large council of 
Norman days there had come a small or privy council. The 
great council was large and unwieldy and a small number of 
advisers was much easier for the king to use. But the Privy 
Council had no authority of its own to do anything ; its power 
was the king's power, and it always issued its orders in the 
king's name. The king's power or prerogative was very great, 
and it was exercised by many important officials, such as the 
chancellor, the treasurer, and the admiral, who were king's 
servants and took their orders only from him. About the 
only things that the king could not do were : (1) to levy a tax, 
since all tax bills must originate with the House of Commons, 
and (2) to issue a statute, which could be done only when king. 
House of Lords, and House of Commons agreed. In nearly 
all other respects the running of the affairs of the kingdom 
was in the king's hands. 

Among the most important powers that the king possessed 
was the judicial. Certain courts, such as the Court of King's 
Bench and the Court of Common Pleas, were national courts 
dealing with the common law, but others, the Court of Chan- 
cery, the Court of Exchequer, and the Court of Admiralty, were 
the king's special courts, one dispensing his justice, the second 
concerning his revenues, the third dealing with crimes or 
offences at sea. The Privy Council also was a judicial body 
exercising the king's power to preserve order and uphold the 
peace. Until this time and for many years afterward the 
council was an instrument of order and justice, repressing 
lawlessness and checking anarchy, protecting the weak against 
the strong, particularly against the feudal lords of the fifteenth 
century. 

The Court of Star Chamber. — In 1487 Henry VII caused par- 
liament to set apart a special court to exercise a part of this 
judicial authority of the council. This court, known as the 
Court of Star Chamber, from the room at Westminster where it 
sat, was to consider such offences of the nobility as keeping 
large bodies of retainers, intimidating juries, inciting to riot, 



184 THE EARLY TUDORS. [1487 

and the like. Many a great lord was fined by this court for 
keeping too large a following about him or for attempting to 
intimidate the lower courts.^ This court, composed in part of 
members of the Privy Council, sat as a separate body until 
after the reign of Henry VIII, when the council took back the 
powers granted to it and exercised them itself, sitting on 
certain days as a Court of Star Chamber and keeping separate 
records. Later the court became arbitrary and oppressive, but 
under the Tudors it aroused no popular dislike and performed 
no illegal functions. 

The Court of Requests. — As obtaining justice in the common 
law courts was slow and expensive, the king set up another court, 
known as the Court of Requests or Court of Poor Men's Causes. 
Justice was given in this court quickly and cheaply and with- 
out much legal red tape. It was a court of equity like the 
Chancery Court ; and because supported by the king's authority, 
it could not be interfered with by powerful men, as were the 
common law courts. 

Thus by his royal prerogative the king not only curtailed 
the power of the nobility by enforcing the law against them, 
but he stood as the protector of the common people. Such a 
cause was bound to make the king popular with the nation. 

Relations with Parliament. — In all that concerned the making 
of laws king and parliament acted together, and in no reigns 
with which we have thus far dealt were so many and so im- 
portant statutes passed as in those of Henry VII and his 
immediate successors. Under Henry VIII parliament enacted 
415 public laws and sat for longer periods than ever before. 
This is a remarkable record. Parliament was certainly not 
inactive, but it displayed no independence, and the reasons for 
its subservience to the king may be briefly stated. 

1 On a visit to the earl of Oxford, one of the most devoted adherents of 
the Lancastrian cause, the king found two long lines of liveried retainers 
drawn up to receive him. " I thank you for your good cheer, my lord," said 
Henry, as they parted, "hut I may not endure to have my laws broken in my 
sight. My attorney must speak with you." The earl was gjad to escape with 
a fine of £15,000. 



1487] HENRY'S METHOD OF OBTAINING MONEY. 185 

During the Wars of the Roses the clergy had withdrawn 
from political life and the old nobility had been almost exter- 
minated. So the Commons were left without guidance and 
support. The king took in part the place formerly occupied 
by the feudal lords as the leader and guide of the Commons. 
To a certain extent he was able to influence the elections and 
to manage the parliaments. He did this partly through his 
ministers, such as Wolsey and Cromwell under Henry VIII, 
and partly through the new monied aristocracy that filled the 
House of Commons with members willing to adopt the policy 
of the king, because he in turn favored their commercial and 
trading interests. The Tudor sovereigns listened with infinite 
patience to the expressions of popular will and rarely went 
counter to them. England wanted security, wealth, and in- 
fluence, and these could not be obtained under a nobility always 
quarrelling with each other and with the king, or under a king 
who was only the leader of a faction. England needed a strong 
executive, and this the Tudors gave. 

194. II. Henry's Method of obtaining Money. — Though the 
Tudor kings acted with parliament in the making of laws, 
they were very independent of parliament in the matter of 
finances. The accumulation of wealth became almost a mania 
with Henry VII. He does not appear to have been a miser, 
for he was liberal at times and loved display ; but he valued a 
large treasure for the independence that it gave the crown and 
the strength that it gave the state. He accumulated this treas- 
ure in several ways : 1. On his accession parliament granted 
him for life the customs on wine and general merchandise, 
known as tonnage and poundage, and several times afte^^ward 
granted him subsidies of a tenth and a fifteenth. 2. He con- 
fiscated the lands and treasure of those who had conspired 
against him. 3. He engaged in royal commercial ventures 
that brought him in considerable profit. 4. He made forced 
exactions from the rich by demanding benevolences or loans, 
which were originally free gifts. We are told that Morton, 
archbishop of Canterbury, invented the device with "two 



186 THE EARLY TUDORS. [1501 

prongs," known as Morton's fork, instructing the commission- 
ers to demand loans from the thrifty because they had saved 
money, and from the extravagant because they had money to 
spend. 5. He revived old feudal dues and caused those who 
infringed the feudal rights of the king to be heavily fined. 
Little wonder that, at his death, Henry VII left to his son 
a hoard of gold, estimated at nearly $100,000,000 modern 
money. 

195. III. Foreign Alliances. — Henry's reign opens a new 
era in England's diplomacy. The kings of France, Spain, 
Germany, and England were entering into leagues and com- 
binations unknown to the earlier period, and each was seeking 
to gain advantages at the expense of others and to form alli- 
ances which would make his position more secure. Spain, 
rapidly becoming the leading monarchy in Europe, wished the 
friendship of England and G-ermany ; so Joanna, the. daughter 
of Ferdinand and Isabella, was married to Philip, son of 
Emperor Maximilian of Germany, and her sister, Catherine of 
Aragon, to Prince Arthur, Henry VII's oldest son (1501). ' A 
year later Arthur died; and Henry, in order not to lose the 
marriage portion and the alliance with Spain, thought of 
marrying his daughter-in-law himself, but finally Catherine 
was betrothed to his second son, afterward Henry VIII.^ 

Thus Germany, Spain, and England were in alliance, a mat- 
ter of pride to England, which was distinctly inferior, both in 
power and prestige, to the Continental monarchies. Scotland 
was brought into the alliance in 1502, when Henry's oldest 
daughter, Margaret, married James IV, of Scotland, whose 
descendants became kings of England in the seventeenth 
century. 

196. IV. Agriculture, Commerce, and Colonization. — Henry 
was very careful to favor the wealth-producing classes in his 
kingdom, and he showed his progressive spirit by his attitude 

1 The special permission of the pope was necessary for this marriage, as the 
church law did not permit the marriage of a man with his deceased brother's 
wife. 



14983 AGRICULTURE, COMMERCE, AND COLONIZATION. 187 

toward agriculture, commerce, and industry. Regarding agri- 
culture, his policy was a simple one. Desiring to increase the 
number of small farmers, on the ground that the farmer or 
yeoman class was a source of strength to the state, he attempted 
to check the enclosure movement, which was turning arable 
lands into pasture. But his efforts had no effect, and the de- 
struction of small farms and the enclosing of lands went on 
for half a century longer. 

Through Henry's efforts England made important advances 
as a commercial state, beginning to carry in her own vessels 
the staple articles of the kingdom and to traffic freely in for- 
eign ports. In 1489 he gave new life to English shipping by 
requiring that all wine from Gascony should be imported in 
vessels owned by English merchants and manned by English 
sailors. He did all he could to encourage the Merchant Ad- 
venturers (p. 178) and gave them a monopoly of the privileges 
of Continental trade. By means of a series of very important 
commercial treaties he opened to the merchants of England 
some of the ports of the Baltic, North Sea, and Mediterranean. 
Through these means England was able to extend her com- 
merce and to develop her navy. 

Henry did not enter the larger field of discovery, and at the 
time when Portugal and Spain were sending explorers to the 
southern and western Atlantic he rejected the opportunity to 
help Columbus discover a new world. He did, however, en- 
courage John Cabot, a Genoese living in Bristol, at that time 
England's chief maritime city, and granted to him in 1496 such 
lands as he should discover to the west and north of England 
and in the Orient, together with a monopoly of the commerce 
of those regions. Cabot sailed in 1497, and reached the mouth 
of the St. Lawrence River. He made a second voyage in 
February, 1498, but upon his first voyage rested England's 
title to lands in North America. Henry did not do anything 
to make good the English claims, but recognized Spain's title 
to all lands south of 41° north latitude. English navigators 
confined their attention to commerce in the east and to ex- 



188 



THE EARLY TUDORS. 



[150b 



plorations in the northwest, and for a century England lagged 
behind Portugal, Spain, and France in the opening of the New 
World.i 

197. Henry VIII. — In 1509 Henry VII died, and his son 
came to the throne as Henry VIII. The new king, called by 
the people "Bluff King Hal," was but eighteen years old, 

handsome, full of life 
and energy, and eager 
to have a part in 
every new interest. 
He was young when 
the great kings of 
Scotland, France, and 
Germany were grow- 
ing old, rich when 
other monarchs were 
impoverished by war, 
popular when the 
others had to main- 
tain themselves by 
standing armies. The 
immense treasure 
that his father had 
accumulated he 
spent in fetes, balls, 
masquerades, theat- 
ricals, tournaments, 
and the like. He 
was himself the life 
of the court. He was the most graceful cavalier, the hardiest 
athlete, the best tennis player, horseman, and lute player. 
But behind this pleasing exterior there was a strong will and 
a great love of power. 



' y-f£^r- 




" r'- -^i^^W^ 




'' :im^^ 


K%-'- 


■ ,,<:"::;"i/^s|/^ 


mm 






'".''*', ' ''" 


\^^K 


y- ^'o 


WM 



Henry VIII. 

From a portrait by Holbein, owned by the 
Barber-Surgeon's Company, London. 



1 Henry's carefully kept records show that in 1497 John Cabot was paid £10 
for finding the " new Isle." 



1509] 



THE RENAISSANCE. 



189 



198. The Renaissance. — During the period preceding Henry's 
accession great changes were taking place in the world at large. 
An intellectual revival called the Eenaissance (rebirth) had 
begun in Italy a century and a half before.^ As a result, men 
were breaking away from the intellectual ng-rrowness of the 




J' I out a iihinoijt oph. 

Magdalen College, Oxford (pronounced "Mawdlen"). 
Wolsey, Hampden, and Addison all attended here. 

Middle Ages. Instead of unquestioning obedience to authority 
a new spirit of inqxdry arose. This new spirit affected first 
literature and art, then science, then religion, and finally poli- 
tics. It spread through different parts of Europe at different 
times and under many forms. The Renaissance was almost 
over in Italy before it began in England. The artistic side of 
the new life affected southern Europe, while the scientific and 
religious aspects wrought revolutions in northern Europe. 
The spirit of inquiry brought into use the compass, whereby 

iThe forerunners were Dante (1265-1309), Petrarch (1304-1374), and 
Boccaccio (1313-1375). 



190 THE EAELY TUDOKS. [1509 

a new world was opened to the knowledge of men. It led to 
the perfecting of gunpowder, which destroyed the old feudal 
methods of warfare and rendered useless armor and castles. 
It brought about the invention of printing and the printing 
press, whereby the new ideas and the new learning were spread 
widely, and printed books were substituted for the old manu- 
scripts which had been so laboriously copied. The question- 
ing spirit influenced physics and astronomy and worked 
momentous changes in men's views regarding religion and the 
church. In part it was responsible for the Protestant Refor- 
mation, and influenced men's thoughts regarding the power of 
kings and princes and methods of government. 

199. The Oxford Reformers. — Early in his reign Henry had 
become interested in the new learning at Oxford, and had 
shown himself a friend and patron of the men connected with 
it. These were John Colet, Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas 
More, and others. Colet, the first of these, had spent some 
time in Italy and had studied Greek, not for the sake of read- 
ing the classics, but in order to interpret the New Testament. 
His chief work was the founding of a public school, entirely 
different from the monastic schools. The founding of St. 
Paul's school marked a new era in the history of education, 
for later public schools and grammar schools were modelled 
after it. 

While Colet was doing this great work for education, 
Erasmus was striking a blow at the old ecclesiastical organiza- 
tion and practice. He was a pupil of Colet's and a friend of 
More's. It was at More's house that he wrote his famous 
work. Praise of Folly, in which he exposed to ridicule the 
priests and monks of that day, with their narrow theology, 
their ignorance, pedantry, and superstition. He translated 
the New Testament from the original Greek into Latin, with 
an accuracy never before attained. His work was revolution- 
ary, in that it furnished a new text, free from the errors which 
were everywhere present in the authorized version, the Vulgate. 

The influence of Sir Thomas More was rather political than 



1516] 



THE OXFORD REFORMERS. 



191 



educational or religious. In 1516 he issued A Description of 
the Republic of Utopia (Nowhere). The first part of this work 
is a treatise on the 
miseries of the people, 
the second an attack 
in disguise on the 
political and social 
vices of the time. In 
this ideal state the 
people chose their 
prince for life, they 
chose the royal coun- 
cil, they avoided war ; 
their welfare was the 
object of all govern- 
ment ; they possessed 
better homes, shorter 
hours of work, prop- 
erty in common, free- 
dom of speech, intel- 
lectual and social hap- 
piness. The Utopia 
was first written in 
Latin and not trans- 
lated into English un- 
til 1551. 

Henry VIII at first 
identified himself 
with this group of 
scholars, known as the "Oxford Reformers." He saw in their 
work nothing revolutionary ; he believed their purpose to be 
the purification of the church, not separation from it. He 
made Colet court preacher. More under-sheriff of London and 
afterward chancellor, and gave Erasmus a professorship at 
Cambridge. Both the king and the reformers were at this 
time devotedly attached to the Orthodox church and had no 




Sir Thomas More. 
From a portrait by Holbein in the collection 

of Mr. Edward Huth. 
When Holbein came from Basel to England 
he brought a letter of introduction to Sir 
Thomas More from Erasmus. Holbein soon 
became the court painter of Henry VIII. 



192 



THE EARLY TUDORS. 



[1511 



sympathy wifh any one who, like Lirther in Germany, was 
ready to create a schism in the church by separating from it. 

But Henry VIII was 
fond of power, ready 
to enter on wars and 
to juggle with diplo- 
macy. In later years 
instead of following 
the teachings of the 
Oxford reformers and 
favoring peace, reform, 
and toleration, he be- 
came hard, cruel, vin- 
dictive, intolerant, and 
full of ingratitude. 
Thus, the first revival 
of learning in England 
came to an early and 
untimely end. 

200. Foreign Rela- 
tions : Cardinal Wolsey. 
— Even while indulg- 
ing in the pleasures at 
court and listening to 
the Oxford reformers, 
Henry was planning 
to take a part in affairs 
abroad. Just after his accession, he had married Catherine of 
Aragon, his brother's widow, less from love than from a desire 
to keep up the alliance with Spain. In 1511 he had joined 
Spain and the Empire in the Holy League, founded by the 
pope to check the encroachments of Louis XII of France, who 
was making himself too strong in Italy. This policy of opposi- 
tion to France was popular in England because the people had 
not forgotten the days of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt. 

At this time a statesman arose who, though a churchman, 




Cardinal Wolsey. 

From a portrait — artist unknown — in tlie 
National Portrait Gallery, London. 



1522] WOLSEY'S DIPLOMACY. 193 

showed greater genius in matters of diplomacy than in religion 
— Thomas Wolsey. He took up the French war with enthu- 
siasm and planned an invasion of France by way of the 
Netherlands. The French were defeated in the " Battle of 
the Spurs " in 1513. This war with France naturally aroused 
the Scots, the time-honored allies of France. Taking advan- 
tage of Henry's absence on the Continent, James IV of Scot- 
land invaded England, but was met by an English army at 
Flodden Field, near the Tweed (1513). James IV was slain, 
and with him the bravest of the Scottish lords, the flower of 
Scottish chivalry. For twenty years afterward Scotland re- 
mained quiet within its borders. 

201. Wolsey's Diplomacy. — In encouraging the hostility of 
England for France, Ferdinand of Spain and the Emperor 
Maximilian had been using Henry as a cat's-paw. Therefore 
Wolsey, who controlled Henry's foreign policy, determined to 
make a change. He secretly arranged a marriage between 
Henry's sister, Mary, and Louis XII of France. But Louis 
died and was succeeded by Francis I. In Spain and the Em- 
pire more important changes took place. Ferdinand was suc- 
ceeded by his grandson Charles, who in 1519 was elected 
emperor to succeed Maximilian, under the title Charles V. 
As king of Spain and emperor of the Holy Eoman Empire 
Charles became the most important sovereign in Europe. He 
was Henry's nephew by marriage, and he and Henry were in 
hearty accord with the pope in religious matters. Charles, 
wishing to please the pope, had condemned the German re- 
former, Martin Luther, at the Diet of Worms (1521). Luther 
had already denounced the teachings of the chnrch, burned a 
papal bull of excommunication directed against him, and 
issued certain addresses to the nobility and people of Ger- 
many. The Protestant movement had begun in earnest. 
Henry condemned the Lutheran teachings in 1522, when he 
wrote a vigorous pamphlet attacking Luther's doctrines and 
sent it to the pope, who gave him in return the title of " De- 
fender of the Faith." Then, too, the pope had sanctioned 



194 THE EARLY TUDORS. ^1529 

Henry's marriage with Catherine of Aragon, his brother's 
widow, and had thereby guaranteed the legitimacy of his one 
surviving child, Mary, who was betrothed to Charles V. 

Wolsey had other reasons for encouraging the alliance. He 
wanted to be pope himself. From dean of Lincoln he had 
risen to be archbishop of York and chancellor of England, and 
finally cardinal and papal legate. It seemed an easy step to 
the papacy itself, and to insure success, Wolsey supported the 
cause of the pope against Luther, and the alliance of Henry 
with Charles V. 

At home Wolsey's position was a dangerous one. He was 
hated by the nobility, who looked upon him as an upstart, and 
by the people on account of the heavy taxes which he had 
caused to be levied by parliament, and he had given offence 
everywhere by his extravagant habits and haughty demeanor. 
Should he fail to be made pope, only the king's favor would 
stand between him and utter ruin. 

202. The Divorce Question : Wolsey's Fall. — At this time a 
new scheme took possession of Henry's mind. He wished to 
get rid of his wife, Catherine of Aragon. Henry had no son 
and feared that if his daughter Mary died, there might be a 
struggle for the throne. But a more potent cause lay in the 
king's passion for one of the maids of honor of his court, Anne 
Boleyn, an attractive Irish beauty of twenty. Henry's marriage 
with Catherine had been legalized by the former pope and it 
would be difficult to have this decree annulled. Henry, how- 
ever, appealed to the pope, who, after a long delay, authorized 
a special ecclesiastical court to be held in England to consider 
the matter. The hearing before the court was begun, but upon 
appeal from Queen Catherine to the pope the case was removed 
to Rome. This meant indefinite delay. 

Henry was enraged, and thinking that Wolsey was not doing 
his best, determined on the cardinal's downfall. Before the 
end of 1529 the blow fell. Wolsey, charged with acting as 
papal legate in England, contrary to the Statute of Praemunire 
(p. 143), was convicted and deprive*^ Qf ne9,rly all his honors 



1531] THE SEPAEATION FROM ROME. 195 

and goods. The archbisliopric of York alone was left to him. 
Later, charged with treason, he was summoned to London, but 
died on the way, at Leicester Abbey, November 29, 1530. " Ah ! 
Master Kingston," he said upon his deathbed to the lieutenant 
of the Tower, " if I had served God as diligently as I have 
done the king. He would not have given me over in my gray 
hairs." 

203. The Rise and Policy of Thomas Cromwell. — Henry had 
failed thus far in his dealings with Rome, but now he began to 
listen to a new adviser, Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell was a 
layman of low birth, a money lender and solicitor, a cool, hard- 
headed business man, but a bold and original statesman, who 
employed in his service commoners as pliant, adroit, and exact 
in business as he was himself, and as unscrupulous, overbearing, 
and unpopular. He pointed out to the king the needlessness 
of papal decrees and the desirability of throwing off the papal 
yoke. He showed how this could be done by acts of parlia- 
ment, which he himself could draw up and which parliament 
would certainly pass. Henry was not willing to. proceed to 
extremes at first, but he wished to force the pope to come to a 
decision on the divorce question ; or, if that were impossible, 
he was willing to prepare the way for a final separation from 
Rome. In this determination Henry was influenced not only 
by his desire to marry Anne Boleyn, but also by his desire to 
check the papal drain on England's wealth and by a greedy 
longing for the lands of ecclesiastics and monasteries. He 
was determined also to increase his power over the church in 
England. 

204. The Separation from Rome. — In 1531 the archbishop of 
Canterbury died, and in his place Henry appointed Thomas 
Cranmer, a scholar and theologian of Cambridge, and a church- 
man likely to be useful to the king. The next year Cromwell 
obtained from parliament an act abolishing the payment to 
the pope of annates, or first-year revenues from ecclesiastical 
officers. This measure was not an attack on the church, but 
an effort to control an abuse which tended, as the statute said, 



196 THE EARLY TUDORS. [1539 

"to the impoverishment of the realm." The pope remained 
unmoved, and the next year (1534) parliament passed another 
act forbidding all appeals to Eome from the archbishop's court 
in England, and vesting all power " to render and yield justice " 
in the king himself. Then Henry, without waiting longer for 
a decision from the pope, cut the knot of controversy by marry- 
ing Anne Boleyn and bade Cranmer, the new archbishop, try 
the case in his archiepiscopal court. The court, as was to 
have been expected, declared Henry's former marriage illegal, 
and immediately Anne Boleyn was proclaimed queen. In 
September, 1533, Anne gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, 
whom parliament the next year declared heir to the throne. 

Meanwhile the pope had decided the divorce question in 
favor of Catherine, and threatened the king with excommuni- 
cation if he did not take hgr back as queen. Henry therefore 
proceeded to destroy the authority of the pope in England by 
removing the English church from under the jurisdiction of 
Rome and by subjecting it entirely to his authority. By a 
series of acts parliament carried out the will of the king, finally 
declaring, in the famous Act of Supremacy, that the king, his 
heirs and successors should " be reputed the only supreme head 
in earth of the church of England." The separation from 
Rome was complete, the authority of the pope was thrown off, 
and the king's English church established. At its head was 
the king, with power to receive revenues, make appointments, 
and confirm all rules and ordinances adopted by the church in 
its convocation. 

The faith of the church remained unchanged. By an act 
of 1539, known as the Six Articles Act, which may be called 
the first act for religious uniformity, parliament established all 
the essential tenets of the church : transubstantiation, com- 
munion in one kind, celibacy of the clergy, vows, private 
masses, and auricular confession. No one could maintain any- 
thing contrary to the royal instructions. Even the Bible in 
English was condemned, and women and wage-earners reading 
it were on the third offence liable to be burned. What Henry 



1535] THE PILGEIMAGE OF GRACE. 197 

had done was to break up the unity of the church of Rome, 
not to reform its practice or to alter its creed, 

205. Henry's Persecutions : Execution of Anne Boleyn. — 
These acts were received without serious protest in England; 
only a few spoke their minds. Against such, Henry and 
Cromwell proceeded without mercy. The Carthusian friars 
had been especially blunt in their comments on the king's 
marriage, so ten of their monks were hanged. Next, Sir 
Thomas More, finest of all the heroes of the time, and the 
noble John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, were summoned before 
a court at Lambeth, the archbishop's palace in London. On their 
refusing to declare the marriage with Catherine illegal and the 
Princess Mary illegitimate, they were thrown into prison and 
in 1535 were executed and their heads fastened on London 
Bridge. Even greater savagery was shown the next year 
(1536). Henry was confronted by many dangers: Ireland 
was in revolt, and the pope had prepared a bull of deposition, 
which Charles V, the nephew of Catherine, was to execute. 
As it happened the bull was never sent, for at this juncture 
Catherine died and Charles V had no good excuse for an attack 
upon England. But Henry felt the uncertainty of the succes- 
sion, as he had no male heir. He basely turned on Anne 
Boleyn and charged her with unfaithfulness and conspiracy. 
After a brutal and revolting trial, during which Henry con- 
tinued bis revellings, Anne Boleyn was convicted and beheaded. 
The very next day the king married Jane Seymour. Cranmer 
declared the marriage with Anne illegal and her daughter 
Elizabeth illegitimate, and the servile parliament passed a new 
act settling the succession upon the heirs of the new queen. 

Henry did not stop here. In 1533 parliament had ordered 
a search for heretics, and required that all who refiised to 
accept the creed of the Six Articles should be burnt. In 1535 
the king sent commissioners to inquire into the condition of 
the monasteries, preparatory to confiscating their property. 

206. The Pilgrimage of Grace. — These acts roused the nobles 
of the north, and led to a remarkable uprising. The " Pilgrim- 



198 



THE EARLY TUDORS. 



[1535 



age of Grace " was at bottom a revolt of the northern coun- 
ties, where a spirit of independence and of devotion to the 
old forms and ceremonies still existed. The nobles of the 
north hated the low-born "varlet," Cromwell, and the people 
there resented the attack on the monasteries and the religious 
innovations. Several revolts broke out, notably in Lincoln- 




t'rom a photograph. 
Drtburgh Abbey, in Southern Scotland. 
The burial place of Sir Walter Scott. 

shire and Yorkshire, but the king crushed them with great 
ferocity. Seventy-four persons were executed, including all 
the abbots of the great monastic establishments of the north. 

This event not only weakened the supporters of the papal 
cause, but prepared the way for the final incorporation of the 
northern counties — Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmore- 
land, Durham, and York — into England. Henry II had 
prevented them from becoming a part of Scotland, but since 



1534] 



SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. 



199 



his time " the border " had been outside the regular admin- 
istration of the kingdom, a lawless frontier, where feudal 
barons were privileged and powerful, and depredations and 
petty wars were of frequent occurrence. Henry did not him- 
self incorporate the counties, but made permanent the special 




From a photograph. 



TiNTEEN Abbey, on the Wye. 

One of the monasteries dissolved by Henry VIII. 
property of the Crown. 



It is now the 



council system that had prevailed there for a century. This 
council, which he reorganized as the Council of the North, had 
extensive criminal jurisdiction in these counties. 

207. Suppression of the Monasteries. — The rebellion in the 
north checked for the moment Henry's attacks on the monas- 
teries, but it probably in the end rendered the suppression of 
them more complete. As early as 1534 Cromwell had begun 
to break up the houses of the friars, declaring that they were 
centres of hostility to the king. The monasteries were charged 
with being useless organizations, houses of idleness and cor- 



200 THE EARLY TUDORS. [1540 

ruption, of licentious and frivolous life ; but the evidence is 
far from sufficient to prove a condition worse than had been 
the case two centuries before. The condition of the mon- 
asteries was not the real reason influencing Cromwell and the 
king to destroy them. They were deemed specially hostile to 
the royal policy of separation from Eome, and likely to be- 
come, if allowed to remain, centres of antagonism to the royal 
supremacy over the church. Then, too, they possessed great 
wealth, and immense estates of land, and to many men besides 
the king, land in the hands of the church was deemed unpro- 
ductive to the nation. 

Cromwell's "visitation" of 1535, conducted by cold-blooded 
and harsh men of Cromwell's own stamp, was neither thorough 
nor just. The monasteries were doomed beforehand. Their 
wealth was their destruction. In 1536 parliament passed an 
act dissolving the smaller monasteries with a yearly income of 
less than £200, and turned them over to the king to do with as 
he pleased. By this act three hundred and seventy-six houses 
were dissolved, two thousand monks and nuns dispossessed, and 
altogether some ten thousand people turned out of homes or 
employment. 

The problem of breaking up the larger monasteries remained 
to be faced. The Pilgrimage of Grace aided the king's cause, 
for Henry made it a pretext for harsh measures. In 1538 and 
the year that followed, so much pressure was brought to bear 
on the larger monastic houses that one hundred and fifty of 
them surrendered. Parliament, by an act of approval, gave 
them to the king. In 1540 one hundred more were seized and 
dismantled. 

In the course of the attack many priors and abbots, refusing 
to accept the king's terms, were executed ; while all together it 
is estimated that eight thousand religious persons were driven 
out and eighty thousand others deprived of their means of sup- 
port. Though most of the lands were given away as bribes to 
favorites and others whom the king wished to bind to himself, 
something like $75,000,000 (modern value) accrued to the king 



1542] SCOTLAND, WALES, AND IRELAND. 201 

from lands, plate, and other spoils. Forty thousand families 
are said to have profited by these gifts, and upon these founda- 
tions a new nobility arose, whose interest it was to support the 
king's policy. 

208. The Fall of Cromwell. — Valuable as Cromwell was to 
the king, he failed to please his master in two particulars. 
First, he inclined toward Protestantism, an attitude which 
Henry did not like. Secondly, he was a failure as a foreign 
minister, for his conduct of foreign affairs from 1535 to 1540 
had turned out badly everywhere, and though the king was to 
no small extent responsible for the failure, Cromwell was 
blamed by his master for the results.^ In 1540 he was aban- 
doned by the king, and the nobility, who hated him, wreaked 
their vengeance upon him. He was beheaded on Tower Hill, 
and from that time to his own death Henry reigned without 
a minister. 

209. Relations with Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. — The long 
standing rivalry between England and France was greatly in- 
creased by the religious controversy, for Francis I supported 
the papal cause while Henry, with greater determination, op- 
posed it. Each attempted at this juncture to control Scotland. 
There the influence of England, due to the marriage of Henry's 
sister Margaret to James IV, had been checked by the later 
marriage of Margaret's son, James V, to Mary of Guise, daugh- 
ter of the duke of Guise, the most powerful enemy of Protes- 
tantism in France. Henry tried to bully Scotland, and in 1542 
defeated James V at Solway Moss. He also demanded the 
betrothal of the infant Mary, daughter of James V, to his five- 
year-old son, Edward VI, and insisted that the Scottish prin- 

1 Cromwell, favoring Protestantism, had wished the king to enter into an 
alliance with the German Protestant princes of the Smalkald League, a league 
formed in 1531 to support Protestantism against the attacks of pope and em- 
peror. To that end he arranged a marriage between Henry and Anne of Cleves, 
daughter of the duke whose territory controlled the river Rhine. Anne did 
not please the king, and Henry divorced her on the ground that the marriage 
had been "extorted under compulsion by external causes." Anne took the 
divorce philosophically and settled down in England with a liberal pension. 




The Wives of Henkt VIII. 

(See footnote on opposite page.) 



202 



1542] EEVENUES AND COINAGE. 20& 

cess be brought up in England. But the Scots did not like 
Henry's methods, and even while carrying on negotiations with 
him were cooperating with France to thwart the designs of 
England. 

In Wales and Ireland Henry was more successful. In 1536 
he had completed the svibjection of Wales, reorganized its 
shires, and admitted twenty-seven members from Wales into 
parliam'^nt. A few years later he caused parliament to place 
the jurisdiction there under a council known as the Council of 
Whales, similar to the Council for the North. 

Ireland had given him a great deal of trouble, for the chiefs 
there were constantly ready to help France or Scotland. In 
1542 Henry raised Ireland to the rank of a kingdom and 
assumed the title "King of Ireland," though he cannot be said 
to have brought the island much nearer to a union with the 
English crown than it had been before. 

210. Revenues and Coinage. — In his campaigns Henry had 
been constantly in need of money. He was extravagant, but 
this was not the only cause for the scarcity. The royal rev- 
enue had declined. The subsidies, which were levied upon 
the value of lands and movables after the ancient fashion, 
had not increased as the wealth of the kingdom increased from 
the flourishing trade and commerce, and Henry did not, in 



On the opposite page are portraits of Henry's six wives. 

No. 1, in the upper left-hand corner, is Catherine of Aragon, from a portrait 
(artist unknown) in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Married 1509; 
deserted 1531 ; died 1536. 

No. 2, in the upper right-hand corner, is Anne Boleyn, from a portrait 
(artist unknown) in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Married 1533 ; 
beheaded 1536. 

No. 3 is Jane Seymour, from a portrait by Holbein in the collection of the 
Duke of Bedford. Married 1536 ; died 1537. 

No. 4, Anne of Cleves, from a portrait (artist unknown) in St. John's 
College, Oxford. Married February, 1540 ; divorced July, 1540. 

No. 5, Catherine Howard, from a portrait (School of Holbein) in the Na- 
tional Portrait Gallery, London. Married 1540 ; executed 1542. 

No. 6, Catherine Parr, from a portrait (artist unknown) in Lambeth Pal- 
ace. Married 1543, survived Henry. 



204 



THE EAELY TUDORS. 



[1542 



reality, receive a revenue at all proportionate to the taxing 
power of the kingdom. 

Thus, Henry had to resort to exceptional though perhaps 
not strictly illegal ways of raising money. He began to 

tamper with the coin- 
age, first by mixing 
more and more alloy 
with the gold and sil- 
ver, and later, by re- 
ducing the size of the 
coin. The effects of 
this debasing of the 
coinage were very dis- 
astrous to all classes. 
Prices rose rapidly in 
England, to the dis- 
advantage of the land- 
owning and agricul- 
tural classes, " and 
commerce was in- 
jured, because for- 
eigners would not 
take English coins. 
This blind and crim- 
inal policy also caused 
great distress among 
the laboring classes. 

211. The Close of 
Henry's Reign. — 
Henry accomplished much for England, raising the kingdom 
to a position of international importance, striking down the 
last of the old nobility, and giving power to new men who 
came from the middle classes. Then, too, he was " the ma- 
jestic lord who broke the bonds of Rome." The separation of 
the English church from the church of Rome was of material 
benefit to the English state and inv^,reased the feeling of na* 




J^'rom a paiuting. 
Thomas Howard, Third Duke of Norfolk. 

He became Lord High Treasurer in 1522. 
He was the uncle of Catherine Howard, 
fifth wife of Henry VIII. 



1647] THE SUCCESSION: PROTECTOR SOMERSET. 



205 



tional unity among the people. But the results of Henry's 
work were beneficial only in the future ; the immediate con- 
sequences of his reign 
were disastrous. At 
home he had alien- 
ated the English peo- 
ple, emptied the royal 
treasury, neglected 
the welfare of the 
mass of his subjects, 
and encouraged brib- 
ery and corruption 
among officials and 
ministers. Abroad he: 
had broken with al- 
most every ally. The 
pope, Francis I, and 
Charles V were hos- 
tile to him; by his 
brutal methods Scot- 
land had been driven 
into closer relations 
with France, and con- 
spiracies were foment- 
ing in Ireland. The 
favorable conditions 
that had accompanied 
his accession to the throne no longer existed, when, in 1547, 
Henry died and passed on the government of the kingdom to 
his son, Edward VI, a boy but ten years of age. 

212. The Succession : Protector Somerset. — Henry had settled 
the succession in a will sanctioned by act of parliament. The 
throne was left first to Edward and his heirs ; then' to his 
elder sister, Mary, the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, and 
her heirs ; and then to Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn. 
A body of executors was appointed also to govern during the 




Edward VI. 
From a portrait — School of Holbein — in 
the National Portrait Gallery, London. 




206 



1547] THE SUCCESSION: PEOTECTOR SOMERSET. 207 

minority of Edward, but this provision of the will was set 
aside and the young king's uncle, Edward Seymour, later duke 
of Somerset, became Protector} 

As compared with Henry VIII, Somerset was a moderate 
and conciliatory statesman, who honestly desired to bring peace 
to the kingdom that had been excited and stirred by Henry's 
excesses. He refused to continue Henry's persecutions for 
heresy and treason, and made few changes in the ecclesiastical 
organization. In matters of doctrine he was equally tolerant. 
The First Book of Common Prayer, compiled in English by 
Cranmer, recognized the doctrine of transubstantiation, allowed 
prayers for the dead, authorized auricular confession, and made 
obligatory the practice of fasting during Lent. But on the 
other hand, some important modifications were made. Latin 
was abolished in the church service, the heresy and treason 
laws and the Six Articles Act were repealed, all chantries, 

1 There were two families connected by marriage with the king who were 
rivals for royal favor — the Howards and the Seymours. The Howards were 
of more honorable lineage, leaders of the old nobility, and upholders of the 
old faith ; the Seymours were newer men and friends of the Protestant move- 
ment. Victory lay eventually with the Seymour family, who were fortunate 
in that the young king was their kinsman by blood, the son of Jane Seymour, 
and in having the friendship of Catherine Parr, who, like the Seymours, had 
Protestant sympathies. The Howards were unfortunate in that two members 
of their family, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, had both been beheaded 
at the command of the king, Henry VIII. 

The illustration on the opposite page is taken from an old print, bearing 
the legend : 

"A Prospect of the Inside of Westminster Hall, Shewing how the 
King and Queen with the Nobility and Others did sit at Dinner on the 
Day of the Coronation. Also the manner of the Champions performing 
the Ceremony of Challenge whilst the King and Others were at 
Dinner." 

Westminster Hall, originally built by William Rufus in the eleventh cen- 
tury, is the most famous single building in England so far as historical asso- 
ciations are concerned. In it Parliament has sat, many famous trials have 
been heard, and here the royal courts of justice were held from 1507 till 1820. 
It now serves as the entrance hall to the Houses of Parliament. 



208 THE EARLY TUDORS. [1549 

gilds, and fraternities of a religious character were dissolved, 
and the giving of the wine as well as the bread to the laity in 
the sacrament was allowed. In 1548 parliament passed an act 
allowing priests to marry, and another imposing penalties on 
priests who refused to use the Book of Common Prayer. In 
these changes too little attention was paid to the sentiments 
and sympathies of the people. It was still reform by act of 
parliament. 

In constitutional and social matters Somerset was no less 
liberal. He believed in the full recognition of the powers of 
parliament and refused to interfere in elections. He allowed 
freedom of speech and debate, and it is significant that the 
journals of the lower house begin with his period of govern- 
ment. He favored the cause of the people against the wealthy 
landlords. It is commonly said the religious innovations 
roused the people of England to revolt in 1548 and 1549, and 
it is true that worshippers familiar with the time-honored 
practices resented the destruction of images, the breaking of 
stained glass windows, and the introduction of the English 
prayer book. But in reality the reasons for rebellion lay 
deeper than this, and were of an economic, and not a religious, 
character. 

213. Economic Unrest : Kelt's Uprising. — Since the accession 
of Henry VII, the enclosure movement, which we have already 
noticed, had taken on a new form. While the old manorial 
system was breaking down and trade was growing, thousands 
of acres were passing out of the hands of the old nobility into 
the hands of newer men, merchants and members of the new 
nobility, who Vere getting profit out of them, without regard 
to the condition of the people upon them. The new landlords 
oppressed the tenantry, evicted those who failed to pay their 
rents, enlarged their estates by buying up new lands, and en- 
closed the commons and arable fields without any considera- 
tion for those who tilled the soil for a living. In consequence 
rents rose, prices trebled, and misery increased. 

Wolsey and Sir Thomas More had seen the evils wrought by 



1549] RELATIONS WITH SCOTLAND. 209 

the new landlords and had sought to remedy them. But after 
Wolsey's death, Henry VIII had taken no interest in the mat- 
ter, and by his distribution of the monastic lands had only 
made the trouble worse. Somerset was fully alive to the evils, 
and in 1548 sent out a commission to investigate the question 
of enclosures and the possible restoration of agriculture. For 
the same purpose he endeavored to carry acts through parlia- 
ment. But he was opposed by the wealthy landowners, and 
nearly every measure failed because the leaders of that body 
were themselves enclosers and thwarted Somerset's plans. 

After the failure of parliament to act, the popular discon- 
tent, which had been long smouldering, became active. Start- 
ing in the. southwest, the rebellion spread through the southern 
and western counties. Hedges and palings were torn down, 
ditches filled up, and parks and commons laid open. Kett, a 
blacksmith of Norfolk, with many followers, seized Norwich 
and established a " commonwealth." But the insurrection was 
put down with great severity, and Kett was hanged. The 
gentry were still too strong for the commoners. 

214. Relations with Scotland : Fall of Somerset. — The opposi- 
tion to Somerset in the Privy Council, due to his defence of 
the popular cause, his ambition, and eagerness for wealth and 
popularity, was increased by the outcome of his dealings with 
Scotland. He tried to force the marriage between Edward VI 
and Mary Queen of Scots, according to the agreement of 1543, 
but France sent aid to Scotland, and in 1548 Mary sailed for 
France and was betrothed to the Dauphin, afterward Francis II. 
France declared war, and Scotland, having fallen under the 
control of the Catholic party, was lost, for the time being, to 
England. 

Somerset was doomed ; his policy had not succeeded, and 
his enemies in the council determined to depose him. They 
charged him with a rash invasion of Scotland, with bringing 
on war with France, and above all, with encouraging social 
disturbance and insurrection. In general, they charged his 
government with failure, ignoring the fact that failure had 



210 THE EARLY TUDORS. [1552 

been due not to Somerset, but to tbe social troubles in Eng- 
land, for which the members of the council, the leaders in 
parliament, and the moneyed class generally were very largely 
responsible. But there were other and more legitimate charges 
against Somerset, He had been arbitrary and overbearing, he 
had seized church lands, had spent money ostentatiously in 
erecting Somerset House, and had given offices to personal 
friends and neglected the friends of his colleagues. 

In October, 1549, he was committed to the Tower, and his 
place not as Protector, but as leader in the council, was taken 
by his chief enemy, John Dudley, earl of Warwick, later duke 
of Northumberland. 

215. The Second Period of the Reign of Edward VI: War- 
wick's Tyranny. — The moderation of Somerset now gave way 
to the tyranny of Warwick. "If the Protector had lashed 
the Catholics with whips, Warwick chastised them with scor- 
pions." The contrast is a striking one, for in nearly every 
point was Somerset's policy reversed. Warwick got rid of 
all Eomanists from the council. He deposed from their sees 
bishops of the old faith. He began a systematic persecution 
of Princess Mary, who adhered to the Eoman church, deprived 
her of the privilege of hearing private mass, and forced on her 
the Book of Common Prayer. With the concurrence of Arch- 
bishop Cranmer, he began executions for heresy. In 1552 a 
Second Book of Common Prayer was issued. The new prayer 
book was distinctly Protestant in character ; a new act of uni- 
formity (see p. 196) imposed severe penalties not only on 
priests who refused to use the new prayer book, but on people 
who refused to attend the service. The next year Forty-two 
Articles of Faith were issued, defining the doctrines of the 
church. 

In political matters Warwick aimed to be supreme. He 
packed the council with his adherents and packed parliament 
by interfering in elections and creating new boroughs. In 
social matters he upheld the interests of the landowners. 
Under his influence, parliament reversed the Protector's policy, 



1553] 



LADY JANE GKEY. 



211 




dropping the agricultural commission and passing laws that 
encouraged rather than discouraged the enclosing of land. 
Warwick did nothing 
to alleviate the bur- 
dens that distressed 
the people. By his 
acts he encouraged 
bribery, sale of offices, 
and misuse of funds, 
and continued the de- 
basement of the cur- 
rency, which Somer- 
set had forbidden, in- 
creasing the alloy, and 
reducing the value of 
the shilling coined by 
Henry VIII first to 
ninepence and after- 
ward to sixpence. 
The coinage of Eng- 
land reached its low- 
est point under Edward VI. The miseries of the people were 
intense. 

216. Lady Jane Grey. — Edward VI died on July 7, 1553. 
By the terms of Henry's will the succession was to go to the 
Princess Mary ; but Warwick had worked on the young king, 
persuading him, in the interest of Protestantism, to bequeath 
the crown to Lady Jane Grey, the wife of Guildford Dudley, 
Warwick's son. Lady Jane was the granddaughter of Henry 
VIII's sister Mary, who, after the death of her first husband, 
Louis XII, had returned to England and married Charles 
Brandon, duke of Suffolk. By means of Lady Jane's acces- 
sion Warwick hoped to retain power. 

But the plot in favor of Lady Jane Grey failed in every 
particular. In the first place, Edward's will was invalid, not 
having been sanctioned by parliament; in the second place, 



Lady Jane Grey. 

From a portrait by de Heere in the 
National Portrait Gallery, London. 



212 



THE EARLY TUDORS. 



[1553 



England would have no more of Warwick. The ill-fated 
claimant, Lady Jane, a girl of fifteen, lent herself most un- 
willingly to the scheme. She was proclaimed queen of Eng- 
land three days after 
Edward's death ; but 
her reign lasted only 
eleven days. The 
nation rallied to the 
support of the right- 
fvil heir. Warwick 
was seized and ex- 
ecuted in 1553, and 
disclosed the hollow- 
ness of his entire 
support of Protes- 
tantism by recanting 
on the scaffold and 
declaring that the 
Protestant cause was 
a sham. The tide 
of popular enthusi- 
asm which bore Mary 
to the throne testi- 
fied to the hatred 
which all right- 
minded men had con- 




QoEEN Mart Tudor. 
From a portrait by Corvus in the 
National Portrait Gallery, London. 



ceived for the heartless, time-serving policy of this basest and 
most unscrupulous of English ministers. 

217. The Catholic Reaction, First Period : Moderation (1553). — 
Mary came to the throne in 1553, and began immediately to 
undo the work of the previous reign. She released the bishops 
and others imprisoned in the Tower, sent Cranmer to prison, 
and drove others of the Protestant clergy to the Continent. 
With Bishop Gardiner as her ally, she began to restore the old 
forms and dogmas. She set aside the prayer book of Edward 
VI and introduced again the Latin mass. A parliament sum- 



1554] CATHOLIC REACTION. 213 

moned in October, 1553, was composed of members elected un- 
der pressure from the crown, and consequently ready to sanction 
all the queen's acts. This body declared Mary legitimate, 
thus annulling all the acts passed during the reign of Henry 
VIII affecting the divorce of Catherine of Aragon, Mary's 
mother. It repealed at one stroke nine acts passed under 
Edward VI, thus restoring the church, its' doctrine and service, 
to the position which it had occupied at the death of Henry 
VIII. 

In these changes the English people readily acquiesced. 
Probably, thus far, the majority were in very general accord 
with the policy of the government, and greeted the return to 
the old forms with satisfaction. Had Mary stopped here, all 
might have been well ; but her own inclinations, the advice of 
Charles V, the urging of the pope, demanded that the work 
not only of Edward VI, but of Henry VIII also, be undone, 
and that England return to the position it had occupied before 
the separation from Rome. 

218. Catholic Reaction, Second Period : the Spanish Mar- 
riage. — But before Mary could carry out the details of her 
policy, she had to meet the important question of her own 
marriage. Charles V proposed his son, Philip II, as her hus- 
band ; and Philip, thinking to control England for Catholicism 
and to gain possession of its revenues for himself, indicated 
his willingness to marry the queen, although she was ten years 
his senior. Notwithstanding the. fact that parliament asked 
her to choose an English husband, Mary disregarded its wishes, 
and dissolved that body as a rebuke for its interference. Peel- 
ing the need of securing her throne by putting out of the way 
all enemies and claimants, she caiised Lady Jane Grey and her 
husband, Guildford Dudley, to be executed. The era of mod- 
eration was passed ; Princess Elizabeth herself was saved from 
the block only because the queen and the Catholic party dared 
not put her to death. 

In 1554 Mary married Philip, and after the marriage, sum- 
moned a new and more subservient parliament in order to com- 



214 THE EARLY TUDORS. [1555 

plete the work of reaction. This parliament forbade the 
marriage of priests, revived the acts punishing heretics, and 
then in one great act of repeal, abolished eighteen statutes of 
Henry VIII, thus restoring the church to its original position. 
It authorized entire submission to Rome, but stubbornly re- 
fused to restore the lands which had been taken from the mon- 
asteries and abbeys. The pope, glad of the return of England 
to the fold of the church, waived the matter of the church 
lands, and sent Cardinal Reginald Pole as papal legate to 
England. It was perhaps the happiest day of Mary's life 
when she and Philip, and both houses of Parliament, knelt 
before the legate, and received from him absolution and a 
complete restoration "to the communion of the holy church." 

219. Catholic Reaction, Third Period: Persecutions.— The 
year 1554 marks the height of the reaction as far as the out- 
ward act of submission was concerned. Yet in reality the 
reaction was far from complete. The lands were not restored, 
parliament refused to revive the payment of annates to the 
pope (p. 195), and the Statutes of Praemunire remained in 
force, as before. Protestantism had made many converts in 
England and their faith could not be undone by words of sub- 
mission or acts of parliament. Therefore, Mary and her chan- 
cellor, Gardiner, in 1555, began the work of persecution for 
heresy. It is estimated that in all nearly three hundred per- 
sons were burned at the stake.^ 

The effect of this cruel policy was exactly the reverse of 
what Mary had intended it should be. The mass of the people, 
admiring the courage of the martyrs, viewed the persecution 
with increasing horror. Thousands who had been loyal to the 

1 First John Rogers was sent to the stake (February, 1555) for denying the 
doctrine of transubstantiation ; then Bishop Hooper ; and finally, in Novem- 
ber, Latimer and Ridley were burnt at Oxford. The next year Cranmer, 
whom Mary especially hated because he had sanctioned the divorce of her 
mother from Henry VIII, suffered a like fate. The majority of the execu- 
tions were in Kent, in the neighborhood of the archbishopric of Canterbury. 
Because of the frequency and openness of these executions in this short reign 
the queen has been called " The Bloody Mary." 



1557] ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH. 215 

old faith were driven into a position of hostility to the govern' 
ment and the Roman party, and gradually southern England 
became Protestant. 

220. Relations with France: Loss of Calais. — The discontent 
thus aroused found outward expression not in England, where 
men had resolved to wait for Mary's death, but in France, 
where a body of exiles had been conspiring for several years 
against Philip and Mary. In 1557, stirred by conspiracies and 
urged on by Charles V and Philip, Mary declared war against 
France. The one great result of the war was the loss of 
Calais, which was seized by the duke of Guise in the autumn of 
the same year. The capture of this town, England's " Staple 
town " on the Continent, came as a terrible shock to the Eng- 
lish and greatly increased Mary's unpopularity. In a military 
sense Calais was regarded as of vital importance to England in 
guarding her from invasion ; in a commercial sense it was 
deemed the key to the Continental trade. Little wonder that 
when it fell, men foresaw military and commercial ruin for 
England; and that Mary, in horror, cried out that after her 
death Calais would be found graven on her heart. 

In fact, however, the loss of Calais was a gain to England. 
It severed the last connection of the island kingdom with the 
Continent, and compelled Englishmen to give up plans of con- 
quest in France and of political interference in foreign affairs. 
It rendered an army less important than a navy. It completed 
the downfall of the Merchant Staplers, and gave a new im- 
petus to the Merchant Adventurers, who were already trading 
in all parts of the world and cared no more for Calais than for 
any other Continental town. With the loss of Calais, England 
was thrown back upon her own resources ; and how splendidly 
she employed those resources in developing a navy, a native 
commerce, and a colonial empire, the history of the ensuing 
century shows. 

221. Accession of Elizabeth. — Mary's last days were full of 
misery. Deserted by her husband, deprived of the advice of 
her best ally, Cardinal Pole, who had been removed by the 



216 THE EARLY TUDORS. [1558 

pope for heresy, hated by her people, aware that her policy 
had failed, and that Elizabeth, who was to succeed her, would 
pursue a course different from her own, she nevertheless faced 
death with true Tudor courage. On November 17, 1558, the 
end came. Parliament, sitting at the time, immediately pro- 
claimed Elizabeth queen, and the people of London, with 
demonstrations of joy, welcomed her to the throne. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE AGE OF ELIZABETH: ENGLAND BECOMES A 
PROTESTANT PO'WER OP THE FIRST RANK. 

222. The Queen. — Elizabeth was twenty-five years old 
when she became queen. She was well educated, shrewd, far 
sighted, and tactful, but she was lacking in sentiment, tender- 
ness, and affection. Trained in the new learning of the court 
of Henry VIII, she spoke several modern languages and had 
a reading knowledge of Latin and Greek. But the dangers 
through which she had passed in the reigns of her brother and 
sister had made her wary and cautious. Like her grandfather 
Henry VII, she was thrifty, and her economies, in contrast 
with the extravagances and excesses of her predecessors, in- 
creased her popularity with her people. To save the expense 
of war she used all her shrewdness and tact to keep at peace 
during the early years of her reign. In an age of bigotry she 
was without fanaticism and did not sympathize with the 
extreme parties of any faith. The refusal of the Roman 
Catholics to acknowledge her legitimacy gave her Protestant 
leanings, yet her persecutions of the Catholics were due not 
to religious hatred, but to a desire to protect the state. She 
understood the needs of the age and did not, like her sister 
Mary, endeavor to run counter to the aspirations of her own 
people. Her greatest weakness was indecision, and her fre- 
quent changes of mind were a source of great perplexity to 
her ministers. She held in extreme veneration the sanctity 
of the crowned head and she hated rebels and all rebellions, 
yet she loved popularity and desired to do what was best for 
the kingdom and the people. These two impulses often came 
into conflict, and we find her frequently hesitating between 
two courses of action. But she had strong ministers whose 

217 



218 



THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. 



[1558 



firmness of purpose generally guided her safely through the 
many problems that beset her. 



i 




Queen Elizabeth. 
After an engraving by C. van de Passe. The dress 
is that in which she is said to have attended the 
thanksgiving service at St. Paul's after the defeat 
of the Armada. 

223. Europe at Elizabeth's Accession. — The age of Elizabeth 
is one of the most important periods not only in English 
history but in the hi ?tory of Europe, also. The Eeformation 



1558] EUROPE AT ELIZABETH'S ACCESSION. 219 

had thrown all the states of central and western Europe into 
religious and political disorder. The great medigeval church 
was threatened with dismemberment. Martin Luther had 
started the revolt in Germany, Zwingli had stirred up the 
people living in the valley cantons of Switzerland, John Calvin, 
a Frenchman, had set up a model religious government at 
G-eneva and had given to the Protestants a creed and an 
organization. Calvin's teachings became the basis of the 
Protestant faith in France and Holland, and of Presbyterian- 
ism in England, Scotland, and America. 

The leaders of the B,oman church were alarmed at the 
spread of Protestantism, and as a first step toward meeting the 
growing heresy they determined to correct the abuses which 
had led to the Protestant revolt. The great Council of Trent 
was called for this purpose (1545-1563) and succeeded in 
giving new strength and courage to the Eoman church. In 
1540 Ignatius Loyola founded the Society of Jesus, or the 
Jesuits, which became one of the most powerful missionary 
organizations that the world has ever seen. The Jesuits were 
zealous and devoted men who labored to turn the tide of 
Protestantism. They were influential educators, politicians, 
and statesmen, and were masters of the arts of intrigue and 
diplomacy. 

The popes, the house of Guise in France, and Philip II of 
Spain took the leading part in this mighty religious struggle. 
For forty years they endeavored to check the increase of Prot- 
estantism and to obtain political control of the kingdoms that 
had fallen into Protestant hands. For forty years Elizabeth, 
who at the very outset of her reign disclosed her Protestant 
sympathies, was under assault, at one time or another, from 
Eome, France, Spain, Scotland, and Ireland. The pope ex- 
communicated and deposed her, the Jesuits sent disguised 
priests into the land ; Englishmen more loyal to the old faith 
than to their country formed conspiracies against her; Koraan 
Catholic rulers, working from the Netherlands, Scotland, Ire- 
land, and Brittany, plotted to gain a foothold in England and 



220 



THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. 



[1558 



to bring the land under the authority of the pope. Thus Eng- 
land, as the leading Protestant kingdom, became the storm 

centre in the great 
religious struggle, and 
the success of the 
movement elsewhere 
depended in no small 
part on the policy that 
England adopted. 

224. Elizabeth's 
Position at Home. — 
To meet the great 
danger that con- 
fronted her, Eliza- 
beth needed a full 
treasury and the 
united support of all 
her people. But she 
possessed neither. 
The treasury was 
empty and the coun- 
try was burdened with 
a debt of more than 
£200,000. Many of, 
her subjects did not 
believe her to be 
the legal heir to 
the throne, and her 
cousin, Mary Stuart, 
a loyal representative 
of the old faith, was 
a claimant to the 




William Cecil, Lord Burghley. 

From a portrait by Gheeraerts in the National 
Portrait Gallery, London. 

This painting shows plainly the collar of the 
Order of the Garter. This "most noble " order 
was instituted in the middle of the fourteenth 
century. It originally consisted of the king 
and twenty-five knights, but in later years the 
lineal descendants of George I, George II, and 
George III were made eligible. To-day many 
foreign sovereigns are members of the order. 
The chapel is St. George's Chapel, Windsor. 



throne of England and an instrument in the hands of those 
who wished to keep England and Scotland within the fold 
of the Roman church. With the Roman Catholics of the 
Continent aiding the Roman Catholics of England and the 



1559] THE RELIGIOUS SETTLEMENT. 221 

Protestants in England increasing steadily in numbers, there 
was danger of a religious war, such as broke out in France, 
the Netherlands, and Germany at a later time. Such a con- 
flict, which would have been a terrible catastrophe for England, 
would surely have taken place had Elizabeth supported either 
of the extreme parties, Roman Catholic or Puritan. 

In selecting William Cecil as her secretary of state, Elizabeth 
showed her wisdom at the -very beginning; and in holding to 
him as her adviser till his death, in 1598, in creating him 
Lord Burghley in 1571 and lord treasurer of England the next 
year, she showed her appreciation of one of the greatest states- 
men that England has ever had. Though Elizabeth was her 
own minister and Burghley her agent, yet to the wise modera- 
tion of the latter must be attributed in large measure the suc- 
cess of her reign ; for he advised the queen wisely in religious 
matters at home, and piloted her with extraordinary skill 
through manifold complications abroad. 

225. The Religious Settlement. — Almost the first business 
of the reign was the settlement of the religious question. 
Elizabeth at once disclosed her policy by removing the most 
bigoted of Mary's bishops and by appointing, as archbishop of 
Canterbury, Matthew Parker, known to be Protestant in his 
sympathies. A committee of Protestant divines was appointed 
to revise the Book of Common Prayer. In 1559, even against 
the will of the leaders of the church itself, parliament passed 
two great acts, the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity, 
and the queen, supported by Cecil, gave the royal assent. For 
the fourth time since the death of Henry VIII a change was 
effected in the organization and worship of the church. 

The first of these acts declared that the English church was 
independent of all connection with Rome ; and that the queen 
was the " supreme governor of the church." Elizabeth decided 
not to take for the moment the title of " Supreme Head," as- 
sumed by Henry VIII. The act also demanded that all the 
clergy and every person holding political office should take an 
oath acknowledging the queen's supremacy or incur the penalty 



222 THE AGE OE ELIZABETH. [1559 

of losing his office. It threatened with severe punishment all 
persons uniting in defence of the papal authority in England. 
Thus the first act concerned the government of the church. 

The second act dealt with the /o?-ms of worship. It provided 
for uniformity in the church service by requiring the iise of 
the Book of Common Prayer and prescribed heavy penalties 
in cases of refusal. It ordered all people to attend church 
or chapel, and enacted that the ornaments of the church and 
the vestments of the clergy should be those of the reign of 
Edward VI. 

The Act of Supremacy was strictly enforced. Of the bishops 
appointed by Mary, all but one refused to take the oath and 
resigned. The consciences of the lesser clergy were not so 
tender : only two hundred out of ninety-four hundred gave up 
their positions. The Act of Uniformity was at first very leni- 
ently executed. Many Eoman Catholics continued, to attend 
privately the old service and were not punished. On the other 
hand the new service was introduced without great difficulty; 
altars were removed and communion tables substituted, ' and 
the mural pictures of the saints were covered with whitewash. 

Before settling the third question, that of doctrine, Eliza- 
beth preferred to wait, in order to watch the effect of the 
steps thus far taken. Beyond a liking for moderate cere- 
mony, the queen had no fixed religious preferences. So long 
as the people accepted the service outwardly, thus giving to 
the English church a national character, she did not care what 
they really believed. What Elizabeth had already done was a 
compromise. The English church was a compromise church : 
its doctrine and ritual were closely connected with the doctrine 
and ritual of the Roman church; yet in rejecting transubstan- 
tiation, the mass, and the authority of the pope it was dis- 
tinctly Protestant. The Anglican faith was defined in 1563, 
when the Thirty-nine Articles were drawn up. 

226. Foreign Relations. — At this time England was a small 
and thinly populated land; a second-rate power, inferior to 
France, Germany, and Spain in wealth, commerce, and in- 



1560] FOREIGN RELATIONS. 223 

fluence. Its life was largely agricultural, and its commerce 
was still in a measure controlled by foreign merchants. In its 
relations with the Continental states it was dependent upon 
the house of Habsburg : Henry VIII had married Catherine 
of Aragon, and Mary had married Philip II of Spain, each of 
whom was a member of the Habsburg family. Notwith- 
standing the diplomacy of Wolsey, England under Henry VIII 
was an inferior power. The monarchs of Spain, France, and 
Germany had always been glad of its support, but they had 
rarely treated its king as a sovereign of equal rank with them- 
selves. 

The traditional policy of England was enmity for France 
and peace with Spain. Since the time of Edward III English 
sovereigns had called themselves kings of France, and the two 
powers had quarrelled and warred over the Angevin lands in 
France, over the Netherlands, and over Scotland. In 1558, it 
is true, English sovereigns possessed no part of French terri- 
tory, but there was still a fear that the French might conquer 
the Netherlands, the seat of English trade. More important 
still was the rivalry between England and France for the con- 
trol of Scotland, at this time an obscure and insignificant state, 
where agriculture and feudal customs were still supreme. 
The Scots hated the English, and Scotland had become a mere 
satellite of France. James V had married a daughter of the 
house of Guise, and his daughter, Mary Queen of Scots, had 
been brought up in France, and had married the son of the 
French king, Henry II. When in 1559 Henry II died, her 
husband, Francis II, succeeded to the throne, and Mary, queen 
of Scotland, became also queen of France. As the Eoman 
Catholic party deemed Elizabeth illegitimate, they declared 
that Mary was queen of England, also. Elizabeth, therefore, 
had to defend her title against Mary Stuart, who was supported 
by the Roman Catholics of France and of Europe generally. 
The latter, by supporting Mary, hoped to overturn Elizabeth's 
Protestant government. The death of Francis II in 1560, and 
the return of Mary to Scotland the next year, simplified the 



224 THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. [1559 

situation, because Mary was no longer queen of France, but it 
did not relieve England of the danger of a Eoman Catholic 
attack by way of Scotland. 

England's relations with Spain were in the main friendly. 
Since mediaeval times whatever power had controlled the 
Flemish cities had received England's support, for English 
merchants traded with the Continent by way of the Low 
Countries, and the cities there bought English wool. At this 
time Philip was lord of the Netherlands, and it was natural 
that England should desire friendship with Spain. Such an 
alliance was advantageous to Philip also, for England con- 
trolled the waterway from Spain to the Netherlands. Further- 
more, Spain was intensely jealous of France, and Philip was 
very unwilling to do anything to increase the power of Ihe 
French king. He was morbidly afraid lest France should 
gain control of England, and he would never have aided Mary 
Stuart, when queen of France, to become queen of England, 
also. In fact, soon after Elizabeth's accession, Philip offered to 
marry Elizabeth, but she refused, well knowing how unpopular 
Mary's marriage with Philip had been in England. Philip's 
jealousy for France was England's greatest security, for Cecil 
was able to play one power ofE against the other, to prevent a 
combination of the two powers against England, and to prevent 
England from becoming entangled in war either at home or 
abroad. 

227. The Situation in Scotland. — Protestantism had already 
taken root in Scotland. In 1559 John Knox, one of the most 
determined of Calvin's followers, returned to Scotland from the 
Continent, and the Scottish reformation began in real earnest. 
Koused by the fiery preaching of Knox, the Scots, in a frenzy 
of excitement, accepted the new teaching and began to tear 
down and destroy altars, churches, and other monuments of 
the old faith. Scotland was divided into two great parties; 
which would Elizabeth support ? For Knox and his reforma- 
tion she had little liking and would never have aided the 
Protestant cause in Scotland on religious grounds. But for 



1560] MARY STUART IN SCOTLAND, 225 

political and national reasons she was forced to support a 
movement that she personally disliked. She did wish to drive 
the French from Scotland, and so to unite England and Scot- 
land in a common bond. 

Consequently, in the winter of 1559-1560 troops and ships 
were despatched northward, and for the first time in history Eng- 
lishmen and Scotsmen fought side by side against France. The 
fighting was successful, and in July, 1560, the treaty of Edin- 
burgh was signed between England and France. By its terms 
the French were to leave Scotland, Mary Stuart was to accede 
to the Scottish throne, but was to give up all claim to the throne 
of England, and no Frenchman was to hold important ofiice in 
Scotland. 

Had Mary Queen of Scots accepted the terms of the treaty 
of Edinburgh, French influence in Scotland would have come 
to an end then and there. But she refused to accept them, and 
the treaty was signed only by the Scottish lords. The agree- 
ment was, however, a victory for Cecil and Elizabeth, and 
marked an important step toward the resumption of friendly 
relations between England and Scotland. The work of reform 
in Scotland was completed in 1560, when a parliament met in 
Edinburgh and did for Scotland what the English parliament 
had done in 1559 for England. It threw off the authority of 
the pope, abolished the sacrament of the mass, dissolved the 
monasteries, and seized the monastic lands. The Protestant 
faith as defined by Calvin was adopted, and another bond now 
existed between the two countries, for henceforth England and 
Scotland were Protestant kingdoms. 

228. Mary Stuart in Scotland. — When Mary Stuart reached 
Scotland, after the death of her French husband, Francis II, 
she came face to face with a remarkable situation. Her sub- 
jects had done two things for which they had no legal warrant. 
They had signed the treaty of Edinburgh and they had set up 
a new church in Scotland, Neither of these acts was lawful 
without the queen's consent, and this consent she refused to 
give. She refused to be disloyal to her creed and her church. 



226 



THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. 



[1566 



But lier position was difficult. She was confronted by men 
who hated her family and her creed, and deemed her but an 
agent of the pope for the destruction of the Protestant church 
in Scotland. Yet for four years she governed Scotland with 
remarkable shrewdness and tact, accepted the Protestant re- 
ligion, checking at- 
tempts at Catholic 
worship, protecting 
the old clergy in the 
possession of their 
lands, and demanding 
the right to hear mass 
in the royal chapel. 
At the same time she 
tried to be friendly 
to Elizabeth, seeking, 
but in vain, some 
recognition of herself 
as heir to the English 
throne. 

229. Fall of Mary 
Stuart. — To further 
the cause which she 
had at heart, of bring- 
ing Scotland back 
into the fold of the 
church, Mary now 
married her cousin 
Henry, Lord Darnley, heir after Mary to the throne of Scot- 
land. Darnley was a Roman Catholic, by education at least, but 
a vain, vicious, empty-headed youth. This marriage to a mem- 
ber of the powerful house of Lennox freed Mary from the con- 
trol of the Protestant lords, seemed to give a new unity to the 
Catholic party in Scotland, and enabled her to deal Protestant- 
ism a series of powerful blows. Mary seemed to be on the eve 
of a great triumph, and the birth of a son and heir iu 1066 came 




Mary Queen of Scots. 

Erom a painting in the Bodleian Gallery, 
Oxford. 



1567] FALL OF MARY STUART. 227 

as an auspicious omen of eventual success. But already Darn- 
ley was involving tlie queen in ruin. Mary's refusal to grant 
Darnley royal privileges led to a quarrel between the royal pair 
and to the murder in March, 1566, of Rizzio, Mary's secretary, 
of whom Darnley was jealous. This brutal murder disclosed 
and made notorious Mary's unhappy relations with her husband. 
Conspiracies were already forming against Darnley, and how 
far Mary was privy to them is one of the great mysteries of 
her life. That she knew of the existence of a plot is proved, but 
that she was herself actually concerned in it has not been 
demonstrated. On February 9-10, 1567, Kirk O'Field, the 
house in which Darnley was staying in Edinburgh, was blown 
up, and Darnley was found dead in an adjoining field. The 
crime was committed by the earl of Bothwell, a rough border 
noble, to whom Mary, made desperate by the misery of her 
marriage and the need of protection, had turned as her friend 
and champion, and whom she married three months afterward. 
From that day Mary's cause in Scotland was lost. All hope of 
a restoration of the old religion was destroyed. The Catholics 
were divided and disheartened, while the middle classes of 
Scotland, indignant at what appeared to be the moral degrada- 
tion of their queen, turned against her. 

After a defeat at Carberry Hill by the Scottish lords, Mary 
was compelled to abdicate in favor of her infant son, Jamea 
VI, who was crowned at Stirling under Protestant auspices. 
Escaping from Lochleven Castle, she was again defeated at 
Langside, and then fleeing from Scotland, she sought the pro- 
tection of Elizabeth, who was greatly embarrassed by her 
arrival in England. Elizabeth did not know what to do 
with her. She did not wish to keep her ; she could not re- 
store her to her throne in Scotland; and she dared not let 
her find refuge on the Continent. She appointed a commis- 
sion to investigate her guilt, but no definite conclusion was 
reached. Mary remained in England virtually a prisoner 
for eighteen years, a constant source of danger to Elizabeth's 
government. 



228 



THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. 



[1567 



230. The Question of Elizabeth's Martiage. — Through all the 
early years of Elizabeth's reign the question of the queen's 
marriage was a most important one for Elizabeth and for 
England. Should Elizabeth give her hand to a foreigner, as 

her sister Mary had 
done, she would lose 
popularity in Eng- 
land. When Mary's 
husband, Philip II, 
had proposed marriage 
to her, Elizabeth was 
too wise to make so 
unpopular a choice. 
Her subjects wished 
her to marry an Eng- 
lishman, but there was 
only one Englishman 
for whom she cared, 
and that was the' earl 
of Leicester, accused, 
but probably unjustly, 
of having murdered 
his wife, Amy Rob- 
sart. Elizabeth knew 
that such an alliance 
was out of the ques- 
tion. Moreover, it was 
greatly to her advan- 
tage in diplomatic af- 
fairs not to decide the 
matter, but to be free to consider marriage proposals from 
those sovereigns whose aid England needed. Until Elizabeth 
was past forty years of age she and Cecil played one suitor off 
against another as policy dictated. 

Parliament, anxious to have the question of the succession 
settled, repeatedly requested the queen to marry, but for years 







^BH 






l^^l^^^MBI^^BH 




H^'''^ 




^^■E 




■H 



Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. 

From a portrait — artist unknown — in the 
National Portrait Gallery, London. 

In the upper left-hand corner is painted the 
garter of the famous Order of the Garter. 



1568] 



ENGLAND'S PROSPERITY IN 1568. 



229 



Elizabeth coquetted with first one suitor and then another, and 
to the end remained unmarried. 

231. England's Prosperity in 1568. — Cecil had said at the 
beginning of the reign that " war is the curse and peace the 
blessing of God upon a nation ; a realm gaineth more by one 
year's peace than by ten years' war," and the first ten years of 




From a photograph, 
Kenilworth Castle. 

It was presented by Elizabeth to Leicester in 1563. 

Elizabeth's reign proved the truth of his saying. By 1568 
England had safely weathered the first great crisis of Eliza- 
beth's reign, and for the moment at least was secure from out- 
side invasion. The cause of Mary Stuart was discredited in 
Scotland, and the queen herself was in the hands of Elizabeth, 
a guest in name, but a prisoner in fact. France was involved 
in civil and religious war, and Spain was busy with a revolt 
against her authority in the Netherlands. 

At home conditions were equally favorable. Trade and 



230 THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. [1568 

commerce had suffered under Edward VI and Mary, owing to 
the debasement of the currency and the neglect of English 
shipping. But it now began to revive. Cecil had begun at 
once to " decry base money " and to provide for the reform of 
the currency. In 1560 the base coins were called in and ex- 
changed for standard ones. Money became better and more 
plentiful ; prices rose evenly and gradually, and the merchants 
and traders, who were no longer hampered by a debased cur- 
rency, began to grow rich. 

Industry and Commerce. — Cecil encouraged skilled artisans 
from other countries to come to England — Protestants driven 
from Flanders and France, who settled in England and estab- 
lished there the particular handicrafts ia which they excelled. 
The growth of commerce outstripped even the manufacturing 
industries. The English government paid special attention to 
shipping, and by several enactments gave trade advantages to 
Englishmen, inciting them to build ships and to do the carry- 
ing trade themselves. Lastly, Cecil strengthened the queen's 
navy, got fighting men ready for sea service, built fortresses, 
and experimented with the making of brass cannon. Thus, 
while encouraging the building of merchantmen and giving 
England a monopoly of shipping, he was laying the founda- 
tions of England's navy and was preparing the way for Eng- 
land's future greatness as mistress of the sea.s. 

The Poor Law: the Statute of Apprentices. — But the agri- 
cultural and landowning classes did not prosper as much as 
did the merchants and manufacturers. The reign of Elizabeth 
marks the completion of that movement which we have seen 
taking place since the reign of Richard II — the breaking up 
of the mediaeval system of agricultvire. The decay of the 
towns and the gilds had thrown trade regulation into confu- 
sion, while enclosures, decay of villeinage, and other causes 
already noted had increased poverty and vagabondage among 
the agricultural classes. Attempts had been made to check 
these evils by preventing further enclosures, by encouraging 
corn raising instead of sheep raising, and by regulating wages. 



1568] THE POOR LAW: STATUTE OF APPRENTICES. 231 

But with the rise of prices in Elizabeth's reign poverty in- 
creased, and the old means of relieving the poor no longer 
existed; for the monasteries, chantries, and other semi-reli- 
gious foundations that had looked after the poor in pre- 
ceding centuries had been swept away by Henry VIII and 
Edward VI. 

Among the earliest measures to be considered by Elizabeth's 
parliament, therefore, were those regulating labor and prices 
and relieving the poor. In 1563 two acts were passed — one 
concerning relief of the poor, the Poor Law, and another, com- 
monly called the Statute of Apprentices, concerning "artificers, 
laborers, servants of husbandry, and apprentices." The first 
required that every parish should support its own poor, and 
this system, confirmed in 1601, remained in force well into the 
nineteenth century. The second act regulated labor, wages, 
and apprenticeships.^ 

Thus in the period from 1558 to 1568 England had grown 
strong in wealth, industry, shipping, and commerce. The gov- 
ernment, prudent and patriotic, was holding the balance of 
power abroad, because by aiding the Dutch or the Huguenots 
(French Protestants) it could embarrass Spain or France ; 
while at home it was becoming more national, assuming new 
duties and exercising new powers, regulating and controlling 
labor and wages, providing for the poor, punishing rogues and 
vagabonds, and either itself or through its officials doing the 
work that had been performed in the Middle Ages by the locai 
factors, — towns, gilds, and manorial lords. A transformed 
and modern England was gradually appearing. 

1 Under this law laborers were hired, as a rule, by the year. Every crafts- 
man was required to serve an apprenticeship of seven years. Then he became 
a journeyman, and after that a master. A laborer worked from dawn till 
dark, an average of twelve hours a day. A uniform rate of wages for ^„he 
year was established in each county by the justices of the peace, country 
gentlemen who had been for some time becoming more and more important 
in the counties on account of their judicial authority, and who were now 
given new prominence as administrators of the poor law and the statute of 
apprentices. 



232 THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. [1672 

232. Roman Catholic Plots.- — But England had still to face 
a crisis greater even than that through which she had already- 
passed. After 1568 the Eoman Catholic church, Avhich had begun 
to regain ground in Europe by winning back converts in Spain, 
Italy, Erance, and southern Germany, redoubled its efforts in 
England to recover that land for the old faith, and to weaken 
the Protestant cause, of which England was the main support. 

The instrument of Roman Catholicism in England was Mary- 
Stuart, who from this time forward became the centre of plot 
after plot against Elizabeth and her Protestant regime. Giv- 
ing up expectation of aid from France, Mary Stuart depended 
henceforth on the pope and Philip II abroad and on the Ro- 
man Catholic lords at home. The pope despatched money and 
agents to encourage the Roman Catholic party in England, and 
within the realm discontented factions began to plot for the 
overthrow of Cecil and the establishment of a Roman Catholic 
party in control of the government. Mary, who was allowed 
at this time considerable personal freedom and a retinue of 
thirty friends and attendants, found ample opportunity to 
cooperate with the Catholic party in England. 

The first dangerous conspiracy is that known as the Ridolfi 
Plot. Ridolfi was an Italian banker, who passed back and 
forth between England and Italy weaving plots. This plot 
probably originated with the Spanish ambassador, and took 
the form of a contemplated invasion of England by Spanish 
forces. The pope, in order to strengthen the cause in Eng- 
land, excommunicated Elizabeth and absolved all Englishmen 
from their allegiance. In Scotland the friends of Mary, assisted 
by the Northumberland earls, were ready to cross the border. 
But Cecil, now Lord Burghley, became suspicious of Ridolfi 
and the ambassador, and gradually unravelled all the details 
of the conspiracy, in which Mary and the duke of Norfolk 
were implicated. Norfolk was arrested, tried for high treason, 
found guilty, and executed (1572), and Mary was saved from 
the same fate only because Elizabeth was unwilling to injure 
a crowned head. 



1572] LOYALTY OF PARLIAMENT. 233 

233. Loyalty of Parliament. — Whenever Elizabeth was con- 
fronted by a great crisis like this, she was fond of summoning 
parliament, in order to show to other powers how well her acts 
were upheld by the English nation. In 1571 she called her 
third parliament. This body, like its predecessors, was com- 
posed mainly of Protestants, partly because the queen had 
requested that Protestants be elected, partly because honest 
Roman Catholics, unable conscientiously to take the oath of 
supremacy, could not sit as members. 

Parliament passed certain acts that were intended as a reply 
to the great Catholic conspiracy. The first of these made it 
high treason to plot against the queen's life, to claim the 
throne during the lifetime of the queen, or even to support 
such a claim ; a second made it high treason for any one to 
bring into England, or to put into use there, any decree or bull 
of the pope; while a third act sanctioned the Thirty-nine 
Articles already adopted by convocation as containing the 
doctrine of the Anglican church. The fourth parliament, 
which met in 1572, imposed the penalty of death upon all 
who should attempt to seize or destroy any of the queen's 
fortresses or castles, or should conspire to set at liberty any 
one imprisoned for treason. 

Although these measures show that Elizabeth's parliaments 
were devoted to her cause and policy, yet it must be remem- 
bered that these parliaments did not represent the whole of 
England. They were composed in the main of Protestants 
from the south, and included no members either from the 
north or from Ireland. 

It should be noticed, furthermore, that though not yet in 
the modern sense a representative body, parliament was gradu- 
ally becoming more modern as regards the class of men who 
sat in it, the questions it discussed, and the powers it exercised. 
Instead of country squires, who had up to this time filled 
many seats in parliament, merchants, lawyers, and artisans 
were becoming members, notably from the towns. Though 
party organization was as yet unknown, the members were be- 



234 THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. [1580 

coming more outspoken in their support of, or opposition to, 
governmental measures, and were gradually establishing cer- 
tain parliamentary rights, such as freedom from arrest, free- 
dom of speech, and freedom of access to the sovereign. No 
measure proposed by the queen could become law without 
their consent, and they controlled all appropriations of money. 
Yet, on the other hand, the powers of the queen were very 
great. She named the speaker, appointed new peers, created 
new boroughs, and by means of the right of initiative, exer- 
cised control of the bills to be brought before parliament. 
She was also the head of the government, and through her 
councils and great ofiicials controlled the actual administra- 
tion of the kingdom. 

234. End of the Policy of Moderation. — After 1576 it be- 
came evident that the policy of holding the balance even be- 
tween France and Spain, and of playing off one power against 
another could not be maintained. In spite of the desire of 
Elizabeth and Burghley to avoid war abroad and to pursue a 
policy of moderation at home, England was gradually assum- 
ing a position of open hostility toward Spain and the Roman 
Catholic party. English sentiment was aroused by the stri;g- 
gle of the Dutch against Spain. In 1576 the unpaid and 
mutinous Spanish soldiers devastated the fairest cities of 
Flanders and drove the Flemish nobles over to the side of the 
Protestant Dutch, who were fighting under William of Orange 
for their freedom from Spanish control. English sympathies, 
which were with the Dutch, finally forced Elizabeth, hitherto 
lukewarm, into definite action. Desiring to keep on good 
terms with those who were likely to control Flanders, she 
ignored Burghley's advice and sent four hundred thousand 
crowns to aid the Flemish. Philip retaliated by aiding the 
rebels in Ireland, by encouraging the Catholics in England 
with prospects of help, and by fitting out a fleet in 1580 which 
seemed designed for the conquest of England. 

In like manner, the government was shaping its policy 
toward the Roman Catholic party in England. Loyal English- 



1581] ELIZABETHAN SEAMEN: "THE SEA DOGS." 235 

men were aroused by the labors of the Jesuits, who had already- 
increased the number of converts and infused new life into the 
Roman Catholic body. In Ireland and Scotland the Jesuits 
were making strenuous efforts to excite a spirit of opposition 
to Elizabeth's rule, and in England to organize conspiracies 
against the government. Conversion to Eoraan Catholicism 
involved necessarily the denial of the queen's .supremacy. 
Therefore, parliament passed laws declaring that any one who 
drew away any of the queen's subjects " to the Eomish re- 
ligion" should be adjudged a traitor. Death was the penalty 
for treason, and under this law a number of Roman Catholics 
were executed in 1581. 

235. The Elizabethan Seamen : the " Sea Dogs." — The actions 
of the English privateers abroad were aiding the war party at 
home. The seamen of the southwestern coast had for years 
carried on a half-piratical warfare against the Spanish and 
Portuguese ships and even against the vessels of other nations. 
English sailors crossed the Atlantic, robbed the Spanish ships, 
and sacked the seaports of the Spanish colonies. Philip threat- 
ened with his vengeance all English Protestants who ventured 
into the Spanish seas, and such as fell into the hands of his 
officials were often cruelly tortured. But the tales of suffering 
and adventure in the Spanish West Indies only whetted the 
appetites of the daring navigators. They continued to rob the 
''' gold ships " of the king of Spain. 

One of the noted leaders, John Hawkins, was the father of 
the English slave trade, and established a lucrative business 
by stealing negroes on the African coast and selling them to 
the Spanish colonies. Hawkins's kinsman, Francis Drake, was 
not a slave trader, but he was a famous freebooter on the seas. 
He crossed the Atlantic, passed the Straits of Magellan, swept 
up the west coast of the Americas, raised the English flag 
somewhere on the coast of the present state of California, and, 
with an enormous amount of booty — gold, money, and jewels 
— captured from the Spaniards, crossed the Pacific Ocean, 
rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and finally reached England, 



236 



THE AGE OE ELIZABETH. 



[1584 



after having completed the circuit of the globe. In 1585, 
when Philip threatened to attack England, Drake sailed with 
twenty-five vessels for the Spanish Main. He plundered the 

Spanish cities of the 
West Indies and re- 
turned to England 
with a heavy booty. 
The great lords of the 
court, and even the 
queen herself, shared 
the plunder of this 
and other similar ad- 
ventures. 

236. Plots and 
Counterplots. — The 
activities of the semi- 
nary priests and 
Roman Catholic con- 
spirators on one side, 
and the raids of Haw- 
kins and Drake on 
the other, were mak- 
ing it evident that 
Elizabeth must take 
some definite stand. 
The situation was 
considerably simpli- 
fied by the failure 
of a Spanish and 
Jesuit conspiracy to 
secure control of the 
Scottish government 
(1582), so that danger from that quarter was removed; and 
by the outbreak of civil war in France in 1584, whereby fears 
of French attack upon England were dispelled. The secretary 
of state, Walsingham, in the council, was tracing with marvel- 




SiR John Hawkins. 

From a portrait owned by 
Miss Stuart Hawkins. 

He fought with such valor in the great 
fight against the Armada in 1588 that 
the Lord High Admiral knighted him 
during the battle. 



1686] EXECUTION OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 237 

lous ingenuity the plots that were formed against Elizabeth 
and was using his information for the purpose of bringing 
about war with Spain. Of him it was said that he heard in 
England what was whispered in Rome. 

Thus with 1584 the war party obtained the upper hand in 
Elizabeth's council and determined to meet the Catholic in- 
trigues by forming a Protestant league. In 1583 a plot to 
assassinate Elizabeth had been discovered, and in consequence 
an association of loyal Englishmen had been formed for the 
purpose of revenging " to the uttermost all malicious actions 
and attempts " against the queen. This association was legal- 
ized by parliament in 1585. In the same year a new act was 
passed against the Jesuits and the seminary priests, and there 
is little doubt that had the queen and Burghley not been in- 
clined to leniency the measures taken would have been much 
more severe. 

237. Execution of Mary Queen of Scots. — During the four- 
teen years since the failure of the Ridolfi pl^t Mary Queen 
of Scots, very insecurely confined in an Englishman's country 
house, had not ceased to work by every secret means in her 
power for the overthrow of Elizabeth. One plot after another 
had failed through Walsingham's watchfulness. Finally, in 
1584 the secretary had in his possession the details of the 
greatest of the plots in which the Scottish queen was concerned. 
By a shrewdly contrived plan he intercepted letters from Mary 
promising cooperation in a scheme for the invasion of England 
by Philip II. Philip had been maddened by the expedition 
led by Drake to the Spanish West Indies in 1585, and by 
England's aid of the Dutch, and he now determined to take 
his revenge. In June, 1586, Mary disinherited her son James 
in favor of Philip, who desired to conquer England not only 
for the sake of the Catholic cause, but to win the new inheri- 
tance for himself and his family. But before the expedition 
could be undertaken, Walsingham had charged Mary with direct 
complicity in the scheme whereby England was to be invaded, 
a native uprising promoted, and Elizabeth assassinated. 



238 THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. [1587 

Under the act of 1585 (p. 237) Mary Queen of Scots was 
brought to trial before a special commission sitting in the great 
hall of Fotheringay Castle and during ten days conducted her 
defence with consummate ability. But the trial was a farce, for 
her doom was sealed beforehand. Mary's death was necessary 
for the peace of England and the security of the throne. On 
October 25, 1586, she was condemned to death. Elizabeth hesi- 
tated even to the last, for though she was anxious to be rid 
of the Scottish queen, she was unwilling to bear the blame of 
having executed a sovereign. After long delay, she signed the 
warrant, and on February 8, 1587, Mary Stuart was beheaded. 
Thereupon Elizabeth became angry, asserting that she had 
wished to pardon the Scottish queen ; and Davison, the secre- 
tary, who had carried out the sentence, was deprived of his 
office, thrown into the Tower, and compelled to pay a fine that 
ruined him. His treatment by Elizabeth, Burghley, and the 
council is not a pleasant episode in English history. Even 
less pleasant was the attitude of Mary's son, James VI of 
Scotland. It is true that he had not seen his mother since he 
was an infant and had no sympathy with the cause she repre- 
sented, but he made no attempt to interfere in her behalf and 
continued his friendship for Elizabeth in order to assure his 
succession to the English throne. 

238. The Spanish Armada. — The death of Mary gave Philip 
an immediate claim to the English throne. He did not want that 
throne for himself, but wished to establish his favorite daughter, 
Isabella, as queen of England ; and with this end in view he 
hurried forward the preparation for the great Armada, which 
had been going on in dilatory fashion for two years. In Eng- 
land, as well as in Spain, the execution of Mary Queen of 
Scots had caused a great shock. Conspirators were discour- 
aged. Moderate Catholics, who had been ready to support the 
cause of Mary Stuart as long as she lived, would not transfer 
their allegiance to Philip, because in so doing they would have 
been disloyal to their nationality. They now stood shoulder 
to shoulder with the Protestants in resisting Philip's aggres- 



1588] 



THE SPANISH AEMADA. 



239 



sion. The great duel was to be between mediasval, ecclesi- 
astical, autocratic Spain on one side, and young, national, 
Protestant England on the other. All other powers held 
aloof. Preparations for the great expedition, which had been 
hastened by the death of Mary Stuart, were delayed by an 
attack on Cadiz in the spring of 1587, when Drake sailed 
boldly into the harbor and inflicted on Spain damage to the 




The Spanish Aemada. 

In the form of a half-moon, pursued by the English fleet. 

From an engraving by John Pine, after the old tapestry hangings 
which were destroyed when the Houses of Parliament burned in 1834. 

extent of a million ducats. Philip was enraged at Drake's 
insolence, and even Burghley, who was still struggling to pre- 
serve the peace, was angry. But the English people were 
delighted at this " singeing of the Spanish king's beard " and 
made Drake a national hero. 

At last, in the summer of 1588, the Armada started for Eng- 
land, reaching the Channel in July. It presented an imposing 
array of one hundred and thirty-two vessels, but was in fact 
ponderous and unwieldy, badly equipped and provisioned, and 
commanded by an incompetent admiral, the duke of Medina 
Sidonia. Confronting it were the English ships, light in ton- 
nage and few in number, but manned by experienced crews 



240 



THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. 



[1688 



and led by Drake, Hawkins, Erobislier, and others, the heroes 
of a hundred sea-fights. The plan of the Armada was to sail 
to Flanders, take on board six thousand Spanish soldiers and 
land them on the English or the Scottish coast. But the great 
fleet never reached Flanders. Beset on every side by the Eng- 
lish vessels during its voyage up the Channel, it was finally 
utterly defeated in a hard fight off Gravelines and compelled 




An English Frigate. 

From a copper plate by D. T. deBrijon (1587) in the British Museum. 

This represents the frigate in which Sir Philip Sidney's body was 
carried back to England, after his death in the Netherlands, 1586. 

to take flight northward through the North Sea. Still further 
harassed by the storms of the north coast, it suffered final dis- 
aster in rounding Scotland and Ireland, and only fifty-three 
vessels ever again reached Spain. 

239. Significance of the Victory. — The victory over the 
Armada welded England into one nation. Religious differ- 
ences were forgotten. Protestant and Catholic had fought 
against the common foe, and both realized that whatever 
might be their religious differences, they were first of all Eng- 
lishmen. Thus, out of the defeat of the Armada rose a new 
England, rich and prosperous, a national and Protestant king- 



1583] ELIZABETH AND THE PURITANS. 241 

dom, no longer in the leading strings of France and Spain, but 
independent and self-reliant, ready for the great future that 
lay before her. 

240. Rise of the Puritans. — The continued conflict with 
Spain had helped to make England a Protestant kingdom and 
her church a Protestant church; yet among the Protestants 
were those who were not satisfied with Elizabeth's moderation 
and wished that " all, even the slightest vestiges of popery," 
might be removed. These people, at first called " Evangelics," 
had been obliged to flee from England during Mary's reign 
and to take refuge in certain cities of Germany, — Geneva, 
Zurich, Strasburg, Frankfort, and Basel. There they had 
established churches, and during the years 1554-1558 had 
fought out among themselves many of the issues afterward 
to be raised in England. When in 1554 they had submitted 
to Calvin the question as to whether or not the prayer book of 
Edward VI should be adopted, he decided against it, on the 
ground that the prayer book lacked the purity that was desir- 
able. This decision gave the victory to the more extreme or 
Calvinistic party among them and suggested the name Puri- 
tan, which was afterward given to this party in England. 
Thus in Geneva and Frankfort, before Elizabeth's accession, 
a new religious party had come into being, which not only 
rejected the entire tradition of the old Catholic church, but 
was opposed to any compromise with the old forms and doc- 
trines.^ 

241. Elizabeth and the Puritans. — When these reformers re- 
turned to England, they hoped that Elizabeth and her ministers 
would adopt the Calvinism of the Continent. They opposed 

^ For these Puritans abroad a new translation of the Bible was printed — 
the Genevan or " Breeches " Bible, which omitted the Apocrypha, struck out 
of the calendar saints' names and days, and in the explanatory notes defended 
the Puritan doctrines. The new Bible was smaller in size than had been the 
older versions, contained a text which for the first time was divided into 
verses, and was printed in Roman instead of black letter type. With Calvin's 
Institutes and Foxe's Booh of Martyrs it became the guide and consoler of the 
Puritans during the later days of trouble. 



242 THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. [1583 

the retention in the service of ''certain vestments and cere- 
monies which seemed to savor of the Koman liturgy." They 
wished to get rid of the cap and surplice, of the use of the 
sign of the cross, of the ring in marriage, of the practice of 
kneeling at the reception of the sacrament. But Elizabeth 
would consider none of these changes, and in her decision was 
supported by the majority of the nation, which loved the old 
Catholic forms. The matter was settled by the Act of Uni- 
formity of 1559, which ordered that the vestments and rites 
should be those of Edward VI's time. Some of the clergy still 
refused, however, to observe these regulations, and it was not 
until Whitgift became archbishop in 1683 that serious attempts 
were made to compel them to do so. 

242. Presbyterians and Independents. — Up to this time the 
reformers had been concerned chiefly with questions of wor- 
ship ; they had not objected to the state control of the church. 
But the controversy over vestments had led certain among 
them to ask whether the organization of the Anglican church 
ought not to be changed, also. Of these, Thomas Cartwright, 
professor of divinity at Cambridge, was the leader. He agreed 
with the Anglicans in desiring the church to be national, but 
he wished it to be separated from the control of the state. For 
bishops and priests he would substitute presbyters and elders, 
and would have every minister selected by the congregation 
and dependent upon it, instead of being appointed and paid by 
the state. Those supporting these views came to be known as 
Presbyterians, and in Northampton and Warwick they set up 
Presbyterian churches which adopted the Genevan Book of 
Common Prayer instead of that of Edward VI. The Presby- 
terians differed from the Anglicans in rejecting convocation, 
bishops, the Book of Common Prayer, the method of appoint- 
ing and paying ministers, and finally the authority of the state 
and the supremacy of the queen, 

More radical than the Presbyterians were those afterward 
known as Independents, who, like the Presbyterians, objected to 
state control of the church and state taxes for the salaries of 



i588] PERSECUTION OF THE EXTREME PROTESTANTS. 243 

the clergy, but who went farther and rejected entirely a 
national church. They desired that only those who were 
faithful Christians should constitute a church, and that each 
church so constituted should be complete in itself, self-govern- 
ing, and independent of all higher control. The Independents 
were not willing, as were the Puritans, to remain within the 
Anglican church, hoping for a purification of its worship, or, 
as were the Presbyterians, hoping that the government would 
change the organization of the church. They were more than 
Non-conformists; they were Separatists. Inasmuch as they 
applied their theories of church government to political gov- 
ernment also, they are of very great importance in the later 
history both of England and of America. 

243. Persecution of the Extreme Protestants. — Archbishop 
Whitgift, who came into office in 1583, applied the Act of Uni- 
formity with such severity as to call out a protest from Lord 
Burghley. Whitgift worked through the Court of High Com- 
mission, a special court erected for the carrying out of the 
church system established by the various acts of parliament. 
The court was specially empowered to judge and punish heresy, 
but until this time it had exercised its powers very leniently. 
After 1583 its activity became offensive to the majority of the 
people of England, though it must be remembered that the 
period was a critical one in the history of the English church. 
The plots of the Roman Catholics, the threatened invasion of 
Philip II, the dependence of the church upon the state, which 
was itself far from secure, rendered the attacks of the Puritans 
a very real menace to the ecclesiastical authorities. There were 
Puritan members in parliament and the Privy Council, and. 
Elizabeth herself had taken occasion to rebuke those bodies, 
coming out strongly against all " new-f angledness." In 1588 
the Puritans began to issue pamphlets of a most scurrilous 
character, attacking the bishops and signed "Martin Mar- 
prelate." 

This violent controversy, occurring in the very year of 
the Armada, injured the Puritan cause and led to a reaction 



244 THE AGE OE ELIZABETH. [1601 

against all Non-conformists and Separatists.^ They were 
charged with disloyalty in that they threatened England with 
disunion at a very critical juncture (1586-1588), and certain 
measures were taken against them, which culminated in the act 
of parliament of 1593. This act was directed against " sedi- 
tious sectaries and disloyal persons," and inaugurated a new 
persecution, chiefly of the Separatists. Many were driven into 
exile and all were silenced. This persecution continued into the 
next reign, and among those who suffered was a congregation 
of Separatists in northern England, who, "hunted and persecuted 
on every side," fled from England in 1608, going first to Holland 
and finally to America. These were the Pilgrims who landed 
at Plymouth in 1620. 

244. Last Years of Elizabeth's Reign. — Elizabeth's last years 
' were stormy. The war with Spain dragged on. A new insur- 
rection in Ireland kept that land in a state of unbroken dis- 
turbance ; while the persecution of the Roman Catholics, the 
Non-conformists, and the Separatists provoked bitterness of 
feeling at home. Despite the growing national sentiment 
there was a feeling of despondency in the air. Elizabeth 
herself was growing old and petulant. Her favorite, Essex, 
who had taken Leicester's place in her affections, was a source 
of continual anxiety to her ; and his disobedience, misconduct, 
and finally his treason, for which he was executed in 1601, 
caused her great grief. With parliament she came into conflict 
over the question of monopolies. When her diminishing in- 
come made it impossible for her to make gifts, she had been 



1 The Conformists (Anglicans), members of the church of England, were 
content with the church as it then was. The Non-conformists, in the narrower 
use of the word, included (1) the Puritans, who desired reform in the prayer 
book and the ritual, and (2) the Presbyterians, who wanted a change in the 
organization as well. During Elizabeth's reign the Non-conformists did not 
wish separation from the church of England. The Separatists (Independents) 
objected to a national church and wished each congregation to be self-govern- 
ing and independent. In the second half of the seventeenth century "Non- 
conformist " was used to designate all who refused to conform to the Anglican 
church — Roman Catholics and Quakers, as well as those mentioned above. 



1603] 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 



245 



accustomed to grant to favored persons absolute control over 
the sale of such commodities as salt, corn, and oil, and in 
1601 parliament protested against this practice. Her submis- 
sion on this occasion was almost the last great act of her life. 

Elizabeth was out- 
living her time. 
Burghley, the last of 
her old advisers, had 
died in 1598, and the 
younger men, such as 
Essex, Robert Cecil, 
Ralegh, the Bacons, 
and others, were out 
of touch with her and 
quarrelling for posi- 
tion and influence. 
The new generation of 
the nation, who knew 
more of her persecu- 
tions than of her cau- 
tious diplomacy and 
wise moderation, 
greeted her appear- 
ance with less enthusi- 
asm than of old and 
called her miserly. 
G-radually she drew near her end, and on March 20, 1603, she 
died, in the seventieth year of her age and the forty-fifth of 
her reign. 

245. The Elizabethan Age. — As we finish the long and in- 
volved period of Elizabeth's reign, we realize that we are face 
to face with a new and more modern era of English history. 
England had become a power of first rank, and her people had in- 
creased in numbers and had become prosperous. For forty years 
Englishmen had been building ships, and English ships were 
now sailing on every sea. Trade with the East Indies de- 



■ 


■^"^^^^■l^l 


Wr 


^^^^^^^BralH 


^^ln^'^'\ 




^^^^H 


H i , ■'i jH^^^^^^^^^^^UH 


Ki^fl 




W/jM 


HBiiiM^Hi 



Sir Walter Ralegh. 

From a portrait by Zuccaro in the 
National Portrait Gallery. 



246 



THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. 



[1603 



veloped greatly, and to extend this trade Englisli sailors had 

tried to find the " Northeast " and " Northwest " passages. 

Chancellor sailed to 

the northeast into the 
White Sea and opened 
up trade with Russia. 
Martin Frobisher 
(1576) and Davis 
(1583) sailed far into 
the frozen north in 
the New World, and 
Baffin and Hudson 
followed them later. 
English fishermen 
were found off the 
banks of Newfound- 
land and in the whal- 
ing waters off the 
coast of Greenland. 

Commerce was 
growing, as was also 
the navy, and the few 
colonial expeditions, 
notably those of Sir 
Humphrey Gilbert 
and Sir Walter Ea- 
legh,'^ foreshadowed 
the great colonial 
activities of the sev- 
enteenth century. 
Agriculture received 
a new impulse when 

in 1598 parliament passed an act forbidding enclosures for pas- 

1 Walter Ralegh's plan was to oppose Spain by planting colonies in 
America. In 1585 and in 1587 he made attempts to colonize, which, though 
unsuccessful, paved the way for the permanent settlement of 1607. 




SiK Martin Frobisher. 

From a portrait by Ketel in the Bodleian 
Library, Oxford. 



1603] 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 



247 



ture purposes. Sheep rearing consequently declined in impor- 
tance, tillage was encouraged, with better farming methods, and 
soil became more productive, and new staples like hops and 
potatoes were introduced. As wealth increased, so did luxury 
and display. 

The poor and the vagabonds were dealt with once more in 
the famous Poor Laws of 1597 and 1601, which extended the 
law of 1563 and brought into more systematic form all the 
earlier measures, throwing the care of the poor on the parishes 
and the execution of the laws on the justices of the peace. 
The acts were not suc- 
cessful, for they en- 
couraged pauperism, 
making it more profit- 
able for a workman to 
live on the parish than 
to engage in honest 
labor, and increasing 
the cost of taking care 
of the poor from less 
than a million pounds 
in the seventeenth cen- 
tury to nearly eight 
million at the begin- 
ning of the nineteenth. 
The system was not 
changed till 1834. 

With the prosper- 
ity that followed im- 
proved agriculture, 
commerce, and indus- 
try, conditions of liv- 
ing improved. For the first time the farmers' houses were 
provided with chimneys and windows, and windowpanes came 
into use with the reduction in the price of glass. Owing to 
the peace and the general feeling of security, houses of the 




William Shakespeare. 

From the engraving by Martin Droeshout 
in the first folio, published 1623. 



248 



THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. 



[1603 



wealthy were built for comfort and not for defence. Carpets 
took the place of reeds and rushes ; rooms were cleaner and 
better furnished ; the quality of food improved, and pewter 
plates and knives came into use, though forks were not intro- 
duced till the next reign. Clothing became finer and more 
elaborate, due in part to the importations of silk that followed 




From a photograph. 
Church op the Holy Trinity, Stratford-on-Avon. 
Shakespeare is buried here. 

the growth of trade. In general, the outlook was happier, the 
people more contented, and a fair measure of prosperity pre- 
vailed throughout the kingdom. 

More noteworthy even than the changes in material con- 
ditions were the advances in intellectual and literary life. 
Matthew Parker was almost the first to edit historical texts 
relating to early English history ; Holinshed and Stow were 
among the first to write chronicles in English ; while Elizabeth 
herself was the first sovereign to begin a collectioiij in system- 



1603] THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 249 

atic form, of national documents, a work which resulted a 
century later in the publication of Rymer's Foedera, and is 
represented to-day by the great Calendar of State Papers, an 
index to the splendid collections of official materials which 
England possesses for the writing of her own history. 

There is no better witness to the reality of the new national 
feeling in England than the expression which it found in 
poetry, prose, and the drama during the last twenty years of 
Elizabeth's reign. For this there had been a long preparation. 
In the towns the level of education had been steadily rising 
for two centuries, and free grammar schools, founded by the 
trading classes, had spread widely a knowledge of reading and 
writing, and made it common among the people. But no one 
could have anticipated the richness of the English Renaissance 
when it finally came. Beginning in poetry with Spenser's 
Fairy Queen, in drama with Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, in prose 
with Ascham's The Schoolmaster, Lyly's Euphues, Hooker's 
Ecclesiastical Polity, and the writings of Francis Bacon, it 
reached its highest form in the plays of Shakespeare. There is 
no opportunity here to discuss the genius of these men or the 
growth of a national drama. The Elizabethan literature, like 
the deeds of Elizabethan seamen, stands as an expression of 
national confidence and enthusiasm, of national independence 
and self-reliance. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 

246. England at the Opening of the Seventeenth Century. — As 

long as England was in danger from outside attack, the people 
forgot their religious and political differences and united for 
the defence of their land. But when the immediate danger 
had been removed by the victory over the Armada in 1588, 
they began to think about these differences and to define their 
religious and political views more exactly. On the religious 
side the Anglicans drew farther and farther away from the 
Presbyterians and the Independents. On the political side 
the members of parliament were becoming less and less will- 
ing to accept the subordinate position in government which 
they had hitherto occupied. Parliament had accepted the 
absolutism of the Tudors because a strong monarchy was 
needed to raise the kingdom to a position of political and 
religious independence. 

But England had now attained that position, and an abso- 
lute monarch was no longer required, as it had been in the 
days of Henry YII and Henry VIII. During the last years 
of Elizabeth's reign parliament had become restless, but as 
long as the queen lived the nation remained loyal to the sover- 
eign whose reign had brought it peace and prosperity. But 
neither parliament nor nation were willing to yield so submis- 
sively to the wishes of her successor. The middle class, mer- 
chants, artisans, and lawyers, representing the boroughs as 
the landed gentry continued to represent the counties, were 
coming to the front and were taking the lead in the House of 
Commons. This house had been and still was inferior in 
importance to the House of Lords, but it was beginning to 
assume a more independent position, and it now took up the 

260 



1603] 



JAMES I (VI OF SCOTLAND). 



251 



struggle with monarchy in order to obtain, if possible, a 
greater control in matters of government. 

While king and parliament were struggling over the ques- 
tion of government, Anglican and Puritan were in conflict 
over the equally important question of the faith and organiza- 
tion of the church. These tWo phases of the period from 
1604 to 1689 were so inextricably interwoven that in treatment 
they cannot be separated. The High Churchmen were generally 
the supporters of the divine right of monarchy, while the Low 
Churchmen and the Dissenters were generally the upholders of 
the claims of parliament. The former were the conservatives in 
politics and religion, 
the latter were more 
radical, wishing im- 
portant changes in 
government and in 
the creed and organi- 
zation of the church. 
Neither of these 
parties knew exactly 
what it wanted at the 
beginning of the 
seventeenth century, 
but each defined its 
position more exactly 
as it went along. Had 
it not been for the re- 
ligious difficulty the 
quarrel about govern- 
ment might have been 
settled, but at this 
time men were not 
willing to compromise 
on questions of belief. 




James I. 
Erom a portrait (1621) by Paul von Somer 
in the National Portrait Gallery, London. 



247. James I (VI of Scotland ). — The new king, James Stuart, 
son of Mary Queen of Scots, was the man called upon to face 



252 THE STUAKTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1603 

the difficult situation in 1603. His right to the throne was 
based not on parliamentary act, but upon heredity, as the great 
grandson of Henry VII. He was good natured, fond of peace, 
and opposed to extremes of any kind. He was learned in a 
way, a poet, a writer on theological and other subjects, such as 
the use of tobacco, which he heartily disliked, and, in his own 
opinion, he was an authority upon many of the troublesome 
questions of the time. 

Unfortunately he was conceited, indolent, and lacking in good 
judgment; and he was easily angered if any one opposed him. 
More serious still, he did not understand the new spirit of the 
English people, and had none of Elizabeth's sympathy and tact; 
none of her instinctive sense of what the people wanted. He 
was obstinate, never knew how to yield at the right time, and 
looked on one who diifered with him as an enemy. Still more 
important were his views on kingship. He believed that his 
right to rule came from God alone — the divine right of kings. 
He did not defend an absolute monarchy, but he did assert that 
his power came from above and that parliament had no right to 
limit that power. In this view he was upheld by the legal 
opinion of his day and by the history of kingship up to that 
time. 

248. The Position of Parliament. — Over against the king stood 
parliament, many members of which held a different opin'-in. 
They believed that the king should be to a certain extent depend- 
ent on parliament. Just as James did not believe in an absolute 
monarchy entirely independent of parliament, so parliament 
did not believe that it could exercise absolute authority in govern- 
ment. The majority of the members wanted a division of powers, 
part belonging to the king, part to parliament. Unfortunately 
they could not agree as to where the line should be drawn ; anr 
though the king had law and history on his side, parliament 
was aided by a growing dislike of the king's power, by discus- 
sions taking place at the time as to how the government should 
be conducted, and by the increase of the Puritan party which 
was very democratic in many of its political views. 



1604J JAMES'S ATTITUDE TOWAED NON-CONFORMISTS. 253 

249. First Quarrel with Parliament. — At the very beginning 
James came into conflict with parliament over this and other 
questions. He declared, in 1604, that the privileges of parlia- 
ment were enjoyed only by the favor of the king, and that the 
members could not claim these privileges as their exclusive 
right. The particular privilege over which the dispute arose was 
the final control of the election of members in disputed cases. 
At once the House of Commons drew up a strongly worded 
Apology (June, 1604), defending the liberties of English sub- 
jects and denying each point made by the king. The Apology 
was never presented to the king, but is important because con- 
taining at this very early date a statement of the principles 
for which the House of Commons was to contend in its struggle 
with monarchy during the ensuing eighty-four years. " They 
did not ask for anything that was not in accordance with justice, 
and they did not demand a single privilege that was not neces- 
sary for the good of the nation as well as for their own dignity." 
In the years 1606-1610 disputes of such a kind arose that in 
1610 the House of Commons endeavored to find out what was 
the nature of the king's authority and to reach an agreement 
on the points in dispute. For example, in 1609 James had 
raised money by levying a feudal aid (p. 79) when his son 
Henry was knighted. The outcry against this act was so 
great that parliament agreed to buy the king's feudal rights 
for £200,000; but the bargain fell through. Other disputes 
arose regarding the king's right to impose customs duties, to 
grant monopolies in trade, and to take for royal use a man's 
property, such as timber, provisions, and the like, even when 
he paid for what was seized. But no final agreement was 
reached in any of these matters. 

250. James's Attitude toward Non-conformists. — Puritans and 
Roman Catholics looked forward with expectation to the com- 
ing of James, because they knew that he did not sympathize 
with the persecutions of Dissenters and Eoman Catholics, 
which had been permitted by Elizabeth. But James very soon 
let it be known that he proposed to uphold the established 



254 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1605 

church. While on his way from Scotland to London, the 
Puritans presented to him a petition asking for certain moder- 
ate changes in the service and practices of the church.^ This 
petition James refused and from this time forward the Puri- 
tans had little to expect from the king, and many left England, 
some of them to find their way to America. 

Toward the Roman Catholics, James showed himself more 
tolerant. He aroused the hostility and suspicion of parliament 
by allowing his secretary of state, Robert Cecil, Lord Burgh- 
ley's son, to bring to aa end the war with Spain. In August, 
1604, a treaty between England and Spain was signed in Lon- 
don. This treaty was very unpopular, partly because of the 
prevailing hatred of Spain and partly because in signing it the 
English government seemed to be deserting the Dutch who 
were still fighting for independence from Spanish rule. 

James did not like the laws against the heretics passed under 
Elizabeth and in his opening speech in parliament, 1604, de- 
clared in favor of moderating these laws. But parliament 
instead of doing as the king wished made the laws more 
severe. It is possible that James would have executed the 
laws with mildness had not two or three plots at the beginning 
of his reign destroyed all hope of toleration. 

251. Gunpowder Plot. — The most famous of these was the 
Gunpowder Plot of 1605. This plot was a scheme to blow up 
the houses of parliament by means of gunpowder placed in 

lln answer to this petition James summoned a conference at Hampton 
Court where representatives of the Anglicans and Puritans held a lengthy- 
hut fruitless debate. One outcome of this conference was a proposal for a new 
translation of the Bible by the leader of the Puritan party. Forty-seven 
scholars were chosen from among the most learned clergymen and laymen of 
the day, and after nearly three years' work the separate parts were completed. 
In 1611 the new book was published. The language is simple and dignified, 
exhibiting many characteristic expressions and usages of that day, and con- 
taining a very large percentage of words of Saxon derivation. Probably no 
single book has had a greater influence upon the shaping of the English lan- 
guage than has the authorized version of the Bible. In 1911 was held a cele- 
bration of the three hundredth anniversary of its publication, and a special 
commemorative edition was issued reproducing the original form of the work. 



1605] 



GUNPOWDER PLOT. 



255 



the cellar vaults and so to destroy the king, his sons, and the 
members of both houses. The government made a great deal 




Guy Fawkes's Lantern. 

The poster behind the lantern contains a picture of the conspirators 
(beginning at the right, John Wright, Catesby, Guy Fawkes, Percy, 
Thomas Winter, Christopher Wright, Robert Winter, and a servant), 
a description of each, and a facsimile of the letter to Lord Monteagle. 
It is a copy of a very rare contemporary print. The lantern was 
presented to Oxford University by Robert Heywood in 1641. 

of the plot, encouraging the general suspicion that it was part 
of a great Roman Catholic conspiracy. That it was so, how- 
ever, has never been proved, but the immediate results were all 
that could have been desired. The leading conspirators, of 
whom Guy Fawkes was the chief, were cruelly executed, and 
the laws against Roman Catholics were made much more 
severe. From this time toleration for Roman Catholics became 



256 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1612 

impossible, and the hatred of them felt during the century that 
followed may be traced to the impression that the Gunpowder 
Plot left on the minds of the English people. 

252. Trading Companies : Settlement of Virginia. — The great- 
est interest of the period, so far as affairs outside of England 
were concerned, lay in the expansion of commerce and the 
beginnings of settlement in America. The promotion of com- 
merce was the work of trading companies instead of private 
individuals, such as had conducted the voyages of exploration 
under Elizabeth. One of the oldest of these companies was the 
Merchant Adventurers (p. 178), which had been incorporated 
in 1564. But new companies entered the field and were duly 
chartered by the crown. They traded with Eussia, and along 
the Baltic, with Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean, and else- 
where. Most important of these companies was the East 
India Company, trading with India, Persia, Arabia, and the 
islands in the Indian Ocean. Each company had a monopoly 
of its particular territory and was looked upon at this time as 
a public benefit, inasmuch as it not merely made money for 
itself, but also promoted the welfare of the state by taking out 
manufactured goods and bringing back coin or raw materials. 
By means of these companies of merchants, trade with all 
parts of the world increased and became a matter of so much 
importance to James that he extended their privileges and ap- 
pointed committees at home to look after trade and commerce. 

But not only for trade were companies organized. In 1606 
two companies, the London Company and the Plymouth Com- 
pany, were organized - for purposes of colonization. Their 
charters authorized them to make settlements in North 
America, and the London Company started a settlement at 
once at Jamestown in Virginia (1607). After many struggles, 
the Jamestown colonists began to prosper, and to them is due 
the credit of having founded the first permanent English 
settlement in the New World. 

253. The Spanish Marriage. — In 1612 Robert Cecil died, and 
also Prince Henry, the king's eldest and ablest son. A change 



1619] 



THE SPANISH MARRIAGE. 



257 



now took place in the character and policy of the king. 
James was always susceptible to the influence of favorites, 
and in 1616 took as 
his favorite and ad- 
viser George Villiers, 
later duke of Buck- 
ingham. 

Behind Villiers was 
working a powerful 
pro-Spanish party, 
the leaders of which 
were the Spanish 
ministers. James 
came very much 
under their influence, 
gradually became al- 
ienated from the Prot- 
estants, and finally 
agreed to a marriage 
between his son 
Charles and the 
Spanish Infanta. 
Notwithstanding its 
unpopularity, James 
persisted in this mar- 
riage because he needed the dowry of the Infanta to help pay his 
debts. In 1613 Elizabeth, the daughter of James, had mar- 
ried Frederick of the Palatinate in Germany, who, on the 
death of his father, became Frederick V, the head of the Protes- 
tant Union of Germany. In 1619 Frederick accepted the 
invitation of the Bohemian Protestants to become their king. 
As this acceptance meant war with the emperor, who had 
an hereditary right to the throne of Bohemia, James would 
naturally be expected to support his son-in-law; but if his 
son should marry a Spanish princess, and Spain should sup- 
port the imperial cause in Germany, James would find liim- 




George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. 

From a miniature at Windsor by 
Isaac Oliver. 



258 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1621 

self in a difficult position, supporting' Protestants and Koman 
Catholics at the same time. 

As the king insisted on the Spanish marriage, Prince Charles 
and the duke of Buckingham went to Madrid in 1623 to com- 
plete the marriage treaty. The question was debated in the 
Spanish Council, where it was decided that the marriage could 
not be allowed, as it would complicate Spain's relations with 
the emperor in Germany. So Charles returned to England 
unmarried, and James, angry because of the failure of his 
scheme, turned from Spain and completely reversed his former 
policy by seeking the hand of the French princess, Henrietta 
Maria, for his son. 

254. Further Relations with Parliament. — All this time 
James was hopelessly in debt. In 1614 he had been com- 
pelled to summon a second parliament, but as that body wished 
to discuss what it considered its grievances before it granted 
the king more money, James dismissed it at once. Prom 
1611, therefore, when his first parliament had ended, to 1621, 
he ruled without parliament, and continued extending his 
expenditures and adding to his debts. 

So complicated had his finances and his foreign relations 
become by 1621 that James called a third parliament. Eng- 
lish parliament and people were aroused by the great Thirty 
Years' War in Germany, and were eager to help the Protes- 
tants there, who were fighting against the emperor aided by 
forces from Spain. When parliament convened, it began to 
find fault with the king for his double-faced foreign policy. 
James reprimanded it sharply for meddling "with anything 
concerning government or deep matters of state." Parliament 
in its turn considered this reprimand an infringement on the 
right of freedom of speech, and made a vigorous Protest (1621), 
recording in its journal a statement that freedom of speech 
was a privilege of parliament. Ten days afterward James 
sent for the journal, tore out the offending page, and then dis- 
solved parliament. These events aroused great excitement in 
England. The Protest of 1621 supplemented the Apology 



1625] THE STRUGGLE WITH PARLIAMENT. 259 

of 1604 (p. 253), and both anticipated tlie struggle which was to 
be fought out under, the successor of James, his less practical 
and less trustworthy son, Charles. 

255. Results of James's Reign. — In 1625 James died. His 
policy had everywhere proved a failure. In his desire for 
peace and the Spanish alliance he had sacrificed E-alegh, who 
had led an unsuccessful expedition to Guiana, and was exe- 
cuted in 1618 for attacking the Spanish there. He had re- 
fused to help his Protestant son-in-law in Germany, and had 
got into trouble with parliament. Yet in the end he had 
married his son to a French princess, and had declared war on 
Spain in 1624. By his views on monarchy and his tenacious 
adherence to his royal prerogative, he had turned parliament 
against him; and yet, in the end, had been forced to yield 
most of the points in dispute. Parliament successfully de- 
fended its privileges; secured the right to discuss affairs of 
state ; overthrew monopolies ; and, by impeaching Sir Prancis 
Bacon in 1621 for receiving bribes, made good the principle 
that the ministers of the king ought to be held responsible for ■ 
their acts. It was evident that the successor of James would 
have to be a conciliatory and tactful man if he were to avoid 
a conflict with the suspicious and discontented representatives 
of the people. 

256. Charles I. — Charles I was personally more pleasing 
than James, and the fact that his reign opened with war 
against Spain made him for the moment popular. But 
Charles, by descent, was not an Englishman, and he never 
understood the English law or the English people. Gardiner, 
the historian of the Stuarts, says, " Born of a Scottish father 
and a Danish mother, with a grandmother who was half 
Prench by birth and altogether Prench by breeding, with a 
Prench wife, with German nephews, and a Dutch son-in-law, 
Charles had nothing in him in touch with that national feeling, 
which no ruler of England can afford to despise." 

257. The Struggle with Parliament. — Charles had promised 
parliament in 1624 that, in arranging the terms of his marriage 



260 



THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 



[1626 



with Henrietta Maria of France, lie would not consider any 
proposition favoring the Roman Catholics of England. But 




Charles I and His Wife. 
From Van Voerst's engraving after a portrait by Van Dyck. 

he broke his promise. Parliament desired the alliance with 
Erance, in order to carry on war with Spain, but it did not 
wish to make concessions to the Catholics. So when a new 
parliament was summoned, trouble at once began. Charles 
asked for a large grant of supplies, and parliament showed its 
want of confidence in the king and Buckingham, by voting but 
a small amount of money for the war with Spain, and by set- 
tling upon the king the tonnage and poundage — that is, the 
customs duties — for one year only, instead of for life, as had 
been the practice hitherto. 

The wisdom of parliament in so acting became apparent when 
the expedition of Buckingham against Spain ended in inglorious 
failure. Parliament at once impeached Buckingham. But the 



1628] THE PETITION OF RIGHT. 261 

king refused to recognize their right, saying, " I must let you 
know that I will not allow any of my servants to be questioned 
among you, much less such as are of eminent place and near 
me." Again the question was debated as to whether or not 
the king's ministers were responsible to parliament. By im- 
peaching Buckingham, parliament maintained that they were; 
but the king, in his message, maintained that they were not, 
and immediately dissolved parliament (1626). 

The king's position was becoming exceedingly awkward. 
Charles had no money, for Parliament had been dissolved so 
hastily that a grant had not been made. Besides, having quar- 
relled with Louis XIII about the marriage treaty, he was in 
danger of becoming involved in war, not only with Spain, but 
with France also. He saw the need of desperate remedies, and 
between 1626 and 1628 used every device to raise money. 
He made illegal exactions of the customs revenues and planned 
a general assessment of all the people, just as if parliament had 
made a grant. When individuals refused to pay, he imprisoned 
them if rich, and if poor, impressed them in the navy or quar- 
tered soldiers upon them. But even these arbitrary methods 
failed to supply the king, and the need of money compelled him 
to summon a second parliament (1628). The new body was 
quick to seize its opportunity. Under the lead of Thomas 
Wentworth, afterward earl of Strafford, it at once appointed a 
committee of grievances, which drew up, after long debate and 
much difference of opinion between Lords and Commons, a 
declaration of the rights of the English people. 

258. The Petition of Right. — At first the Commons tried 
to accomplish their purpose by drawing up a bill, defining the 
liberties of the subject, to be passed into law in the usual 
manner. But fearing that the king would not give his assent, 
because such law would bind him too much, they changed the 
bill to a petition — a petition of right, a remedy available to 
any one of the king's subjects at any time — enforcement of 
which in the courts was dependent on the king's word and not 
on the law of the land. Their object was to obtain from the 



262 THE STUARTS AND PAELIAMENT. [1628 

king a voluntary limiting of his prerogative in certain particu- 
lars, in order that the courts might in such cases interpret the 
law in favor of the petitioners. But to make their petition 
more impressive and to give it the solemnity of a bill, they 
caused it to be passed through the houses in the manner of a 
bill, and they demanded of the king that he give his consent 
in full parliament. This the king did, after some hesitation, 
on June 7, 1628. Thus the petition became a matter of per- 
manent record, a circumstance which rendered it much more 
difficult for the king to refuse to carry out what he had prom- 
ised. 

The House of Commons had now gained a great victory. 
The king had given his word, in the most solemn manner pos- 
sible, that neither he nor his officers, ministers, or the judges 
in his courts would henceforth do any one of the four things to 
which the House of Commons objected. He promised 

(1) not to force money from the people by demanding loans, 
benevolences, or other exactions against their wills ; 

(2) not to commit any one to prison without showing a suffi- 
cient cause for doing so ; 

(3) not to billet soldiers and mariners upon the people, by 
compelling the inhabitants to take them into their houses and 
support them there ; and 

(4) not to exercise military or martial law in any part of 
England in time of peace. 

259. The Parliament of 1629. — The passage of the Petition 
of Right was only a temporary compromise, for the king had 
no intention of yielding permanently. It marks the beginning 
of a great struggle on the part of parliament for a further 
limitation of the authority of the king and the church. Yet 
at this date an agreement might have been reached, for the 
best men of the House of Commons were anxious that king 
and parliament should work in harmony. But even before the 
close of the session of 1628, the harmony was broken. The 
king declared that he had the right to levy tonnage and 
poundage, that is, customs dues (see p. 185), without the 



1629] THE PERSONAL RULE OF CHARLES L 263 

assent of parliament, bvt the latter, resting its case upon the 
word "tax" in the first clause of the Petition of Eight, as- 
serted that the king's levying such dues would be a breach of 
the law. Again on the opening of the new session in January, 
1629, a further deadlock arose over the king's assertion that 
the bishops had authority to interpret the meaning of the 
Thirty-nine Articles, and that all people must accept their 
interpretation. The king adjourned the house, but when the 
speaker sought to comply, a striking scene was enacted. A 
group of five members led by John Eliot held the speaker by 
force in the chair while a series of resolutions were adopted 
covering the points in question as a kind of appeal to the 
country against the king and the bishops. Immediately after 
this defiant action, the king dissolved parliament, and sent the 
five leaders to the Tower. There, after a confinement of three 
years, Eliot died, a martyr to the cause of parliamentary liberty 
(November, 1632). 

260. The Personal Rule of Charles I (1629-1640). — Charles, 
having discovered that he could not work with parliament, 
determined to get along without it. For eleven years he 
governed England in the way that seemed to him best. He 
stood alone, for Buckingham had been assassinated by a dis- 
contented officer named Eelton, just before parliament had 
assembled in 1629. His government was not all bad, as has 
too frequently been concluded, for it accomplished a great deal 
that was good for England ; but the methods were bad and 
illegal, and brought the work of the king and his advisers into 
discredit. 

During this period the chief advisers of the king were 
Wentworth and Laud, archbishop of Canterbury. Wentworth 
had been on the side of the House of Commons and was the 
real author of the Petition of Right, but he had soon found 
hims3lf out of touch with Eliot and the Puritans. Satisfied 
with the correction of the abuses named in the Petition, in 
1628 he had given his support to the cause of the king. Laud, 
the representative of the high church party among the Angli- 



264 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1633 

cans, had come into favor with the king, and was guiding his 
ecclesiastical policy. Neither Wentworth nor Laud desired 
anything but the good of England ; but each was intolerant 
and uncompromising, and insisted that his system be applied 
without regard for the opposition it met on every side. The good 
that they did has been forgotten, and only the evil remembered. 

261. The " Thorough " Policy of Wentworth and Laud. — Hav- 
ing been appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1632, Went- 
worth undertook to reform the Irish system without regard 
for the private interests of any one. He attempted to bring 
order and efficiency out of chaos and corruption. He reorgan- 
ized the army, suppressed pirates, enforced discipline, and 
encouraged manufactures and commerce. His motives were 
excellent, but his methods were questionable. He bullied the 
Irish parliament, fined juries that decided against him, abused 
Irish officials, and constantly interfered with the customs of 
the Irish tribes, particularly in the matt^ of their lands. 
Wentworth was a man of force and ability but without good 
judgment, and though for seven years he gave Ireland peace 
and order, he destroyed every vestige of self-government, and 
on his withdrawal in 1639 he left the island seething with 
discontent. 

Meanwhile in England Laud was trying to do for the church 
what Wentworth was attempting to do for Ireland. Having 
definite ideas as to what the doctrine, ritual, and organization 
of the church should be, he was determined to force these ideas 
upon others. He harried Puritans and Presbyterians and all 
who by word or deed differed with him. After 1633, when he 
was made archbishop of Canterbury, he became " thorough " in 
the strictest sense of the word. He deserves credit in that he 
restored order and decency in the churches and ennobled the 
ritual. But, on the other hand, he persecuted Puritan divines, 
and imprisoned and mutilated writers who attacked the stage, 
court life, and church ceremoniaL The excitement prevailing 
in England was intense, and Puritan emigration to America 
increased. 



1637] THE KING'S FINANCIAL MEASUKES. 265 

262. The King's Financial Measures. — Having no money by- 
parliamentary grant, the king was forced to employ all sorts of 
financial expedients to raise it. The customs dues proving in- 
sufficient, he resorted to three other methods of raising money. 
1. He revived old feudal obligations, and compelled every 
freeholder having land worth £ 40 a year to become a knight, 
or, in case of refusal, to pay a fine. 2. He sent commission- 
ers to trace the boundaries of the "forests," and by enlarging 
these boundaries compelled all whose lands fell within the new 
limits to pay large amounts in order to obtain back their es- 
tates. 3. He sold to incorporated companies monopolies of 
coal, soap, starch, iron, gunpowder, tobacco, salt, and the like, 
thus injuring legitimate trade and increasing the cost of living. 
By the knighthood fines he estranged the well-to-do gentry; 
by enlarging the forests he ojffended the nobility and men of 
quality; by the sale of monopolies he made the lot of the 
wage-earners more burdensome.^ 

Finally Charles made a demand for ship-money, seeing in it 
"a spring and magazine that should have no bottom and an 
everlasting supply on all occasions." Formerly in time of war 
it had been customary to levy ship-money on the sea-ports ; but 
the king's attorney-general, Noy, suggested that the practice be 
revived in times of peace. In 1634 the first levies were made 
on London and a few other ports ; in 1635 a second levy was 
made, this time on the inland counties ; in 1636 a third ; and 
in 1637 a fourth. There was grumbling, but the majority of 
those assessed paid the tax. In 1636, however, John Hamp- 
den, a wealthy gentleman of Buckinghamshire, resisted pay- 
ment, and the case was tried in 1637 before the judges of the 
Court of the Exchequer. Seven decided for the king, five 

1 The only classes not affected were the very poor and the unemployed. 
Both in Ireland and in England the government made exceptionally success- 
ful efforts to carry out the Poor Laws, and to relieve the poor from the op- 
pression of the rich. The Privy Council enforced the Law of Apprentices, 
suppressed vagrancy, gave work to the unemployed, and protected the desti- 
tute. During the period from 1631 to 1640 there was more poor relief in Eng- 
land than at any other time in English history. 



266 THE STUARTS AKD PARLIAMENT. [1640 

against. It was ominous that the majority for the king was 
only two, and that in the minds of the people the defenders of 
Hampden had the better of the argument. 

263. The Scottish Revolt. — After such a victory for the 
king, parliamentary government seemed to be at an end. The 
Star Chamber (Privy Council, p. 183) and the High Commis- 
sion Court seemed more powerful than ever. Men were sum- 
moned before these bodies for insufficient cause and were 
punished often harshly and unreasonably. Each year the 
action of the Privy Council became more oppressive, its orders 
more arbitrary, and its disregard of the rights of property, the 
liberty of the subject, and the independence of the law courts 
more intolerable. England was divided into two camps: on 
one side were the upholders of the privileges of parliament, 
the common law courts, the low churchmen, and the Puritans ; 
on the other the upholders of the full royal prerogative, the 
supporters of the policy of the Privy Council, and the high 
churchmen. 

Yet in this same year (1637) a movement began in Scotland 
which was to lead to the destruction of the system that the 
king, Wentworth, and Laud had so carefully built up. When 
Charles tried to extend Laud's ecclesiastical regulations into 
Scotland, all classes of the people — noblemen, barons, gentle- 
men, burgesses, ministers, and commons — resisted, and in 
March, 1638, signed the National Covenant, thereby support- 
ing the reformed religion of Scotland. In an assembly held in 
Glasgow in November, 1639, they abolished E-piscopacy and 
the prayer book altogether. The king, aroused by this defiant 
act, called Wentworth from Ireland to help coerce Scotland, at 
the same time creating him earl of Strafford (1640). 

Strafford, knowing that Charles without army or money was 
in no condition to war against the Scots, advised the king to 
call a parliament and throw the responsibility of a decision 
upon its members. The king, glad to be relieved of the re- 
sponsibility, accepted the suggestion, and on April 13, 1640, 
convened the first parliament that had sat in eleven years. 



1640] 



THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 



267 



But this body, led by John Pym, a Somersetshire squire, 
showed that the position taken by it in 1628 and 1629 was un- 
changed, and Pym in 
a firm but conciliatory 
speech repeated the 
grievances of parlia- 
ment. Charles, angry 
because parliament 
refused to grant sup- 
plies before griev- 
ances were redressed, 
dissolved it on May 
5, after a session of 
only three weeks, and 
so threw away the 
last opportunity of 
friendly compromise. 
Two systems of govt 
ernment in church 
and state had come 
into conflict and the 
differences were seen 
to be irreconcilable. 

In Scotland the policy of " thorough " failed. A Scottish 
army invaded England, entered Newcastle, and nearly captured 
York. The king called a council of peers, but received only the 
advice to summon another parliament. There was nothing else 
for him to do. The Scottish army was in the northern counties. 
Strafford ha.d not succeeded in forcing money from London, or 
even in borrowing it of Spain or the pope. People in the counties 
were resisting the payment of ship-money; the apprentices and 
journeymen were rioting in London. Under these circumstances 
were elected the men who, at Westminster, on November 3> 
1640, assembled in parliament. A great crisis was at hand. 

264. The Long Parliament. — The members of this new as- 
sembly came together with a grim determination to be, as Pym 




John Pym. 

Erom Houbraken's engraving after a portrait 
by Janssen in South Kensington Museum. 



268 



THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 



[1640 



said, " of another temper than they were the last parliament " ; 
determined not only "to sweep the house clean below, but to 

pull down all the cob- 
webs which hung in 
the tops and corners, 
that they might not 
breed dust and so 
make a foul house 
hereafter." They 

had resolved to ac- 
complish three 
things : (1) to release 
from prison those who 
had suffered from the 
king's arbitrary 
methods; (2) to 
punish the king's 
ministers and advi- 
sers ; (3) to strengthen 
the constitution so 
that the arbitrary, 
rule would be im- 
possible hereafter. 
First of all, there- 
fore, political prisoners were released and welcomed to Lon- 
don by crowds of sympathizers. Then, on November 11, 
Strafford was impeached and sent to the Tower, and Laud 
likewise was imprisoned. The charge of treason would not 
hold against Strafford, for his acts had not been directed 
against the king. The House of Commons, therefore, changed 
che bill of impeachment to one of attainder, which called 
for no trial, and gave no opportunity to the accused to de- 
fend himself. To his shame, Charles signed away the life 
of his minister, to whom he had given the promise that he 
" should not suffer in life, honor or fortune." King as well as 
parliament was rendered cowardly by terror. On May 12, 





.■^'« 






-3 ■:0/- /l-^^W^-'' ■ 



Thomas Wentworth, Earl or Strafford. 
From a copy of a lost portrait by Van Dyck. 



1641] RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES. 269 

1641, Strafford was executed on Tower Hill, and five years 

later Archbishop Laud met the same fate. 

Meanwhile the attack on absolute government had begun, 
and in six weeks the revolution against the Stuart system was 
for the time being complete. The royal prerogative was 
shorn of many of its powers. Fearing lest Charles might pro- 
rogue or dissolve parliament, and again attempt to rule with- 
out it, the House of Commons passed the Triennial Act, which 
ordered that no more than three years should ever elapse with- 
out a summons of parliament. Another act forbade the king 
to dissolve the existing parliament without its own consent. 
The king, threatened with the cutting off of his subsidies, 
signed each act. 

Parliament swept away the High Commission Court, the 
Councils of the North and of Wales, and took away the judi- 
cial powers which the Privy Council, sitting as the Court of 
Star Chamber, had exercised so oppressively. It made the 
levying of tonnage and poundage absolutely dependent on a 
parliamentary grant, and so settled finally the long dispute 
over the control of customs dues. It prohibited further tam- 
pering with the forest boundaries, forbade the exacting of fees 
for knighthood, and declared ship-money unlawful. Thus, the 
statute law was placed above the king, and extraordinary courts 
of justice were permanently forbidden. Henceforth the king 
must exercise his authority in accordance with the statutes and 
with the decisions of the common law courts. These reforms 
represent the greatest and most important work of the Long 
Parliament. In this work of adjusting the constitution the 
members acted with extraordinary unanimity, and step by step 
brought the constitution nearer the form it bears to-day. 

265. Religious Differences. — But as soon as religious ques- 
tions were brought forward the harmony in parliament disap- 
peared. The conservative members — whom we may call the 
church party — preferred the Anglican system as it was, and 
were unwilling to alter the existing organization of the church. 
The other party, consisting of the extreme Puritans, that is to 



270 



THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 



[1641 



say, the Presbyterians and Independents, led by Oliver Crom- 
well and Sir Harry Vane, were not satisfied and wished to 

abolish Episcopacy, 
that is, church gov- 
ernment by archbish- 
ops and bishops. 
Thus, when parlia- 
ment resumed its 
session in October, 
1641, two parties 
were already forming 
in the House of Com- 
mons and the House 
of Lords: one be- 
lieved that further 
change in the consti- 
tution was undesir- 
able and that 
parliament should be 
content with what it 
had accomplished ; 
the other wished to 
go farther. As mu- 
tual distrust arose 
and these parties be- 
gan to drift farther and farther apart, the Puritans in a 
memorable sitting on November 8 presented for adoption a 
Grand Eemonstrance, an appeal to the nation against the king. 
266. The Grand Remonstrance. — In this remonstrance all the 
members of parliament were called upon to commit themselves 
to the opinion of the extreme Protestants. The remonstrance 
demanded: first, that the king should select councillors of 
whom parliament could approve ; and second, and more im- 
portant still, that a synod of divines be called to reform the 
church. The church party might perhaps have accepted the 
first remedy, but ^t could not accept the second, because no 




Sir Harry Vane. 

From an engraving of a miniature by Flat- 
man in the Montagu House collection. 



1641] CHARLES TRIES TO ARREST THE LEADERS. 271 

Anglican would trust an assembly of Presbyterian and Inde- 
pendent ministers to model the church as it pleased. When, 
finally, the roll was called it was found that the remonstrance 
had been carried by the narrow margin of eleven votes. " If 
the remonstrance had been rejected," said Cromwell, " I would 




From an old evgraiiivij. 



Old Houses op Parliament, Westminster Hall, and Westminster 

Abbey. 

have sold all that I had and never seen England any more." 
For the extreme party it was a critical moment and a great 
victory. But it was also a deplorable victory, for it divided 
the nation into two camps, whose attitude toward each other 
became daily more hostile and irreconcilable. 

267. Charles tries to arrest the Leaders. — The church party 
now went over to the side of the king. With every month the 
excitement increased and rumors went abroad that to save the 
crown and the church Charles was preparing to treat Pym and 
Hampden as Pym and Hampden had treated Strafford. That 
he had deliberately formed such a plan is doubtful, for it was 
his habit to act rather from impulse than design. Early in 
January he heard that the parliamentary leaders were resolved 
to impeach the. queen, Henrietta Maria, as the cause of all the 
mischief. The chivalrous instincts of the king were aroused, 



272 THE STUAETS AND PARLIAMENT. [1642 

but he committed at this point an irretrievable blunder, by- 
entering the chamber of the House of Commons, where, ac- 
cording to the privilege claimed by that house, the king was 
not to go.^ 

On January 4, 1642, Charles went in person, with four hundred 
soldiers, to seize Pym, Hampden, and three other leaders. The 
king's plan failed, for the leaders were warned in time, and made 
their escape. It is probable that he had not intended to act 
treacherously, but he was hopelessly in the wrong, for in vio- 
lating the privileges of the House, he had committed an act 
which not only destroyed the faith of parliament in him, but 
rendered compromise impossible. 

268. Immediate Causes of the Civil War. — The attempt to 
arrest Pym and Hampden was not the immediate cause of the 
war that followed. That is to be found in the struggle between 
the king and parliament to control the militia of the kingdom. 
Parliament, distrusting the king, passed a militia hill in March, 
1642, which took from the king the appointment of the lord- 
lieutenants of militia and the governors of the fortresses of the 
kingdom. This bill the king refused to sign, and parliament 
determined to enforce it without the king's consent. Two 
months later (May) Charles forbade the trained bands to obey 
parliament, and issued commissions of his own, calling out 
the militia. Parliament, in its turn, appointed a committee of 
public safety, voted to raise an army, and named the earl of 
Essex as leader of its troops. It sent to the king nineteen 
propositions as a kind of ultimatum, and in these demanded 
the right to control the appointment of ministers, councillors, 
and judges ; to manage home affairs, foreign affairs, the army 
and the navy, the church, justice, and, in short, all that con- 
cerned the government of the kingdom. But no king of that 
day would willingly have consented to such a curtailment of 
his powers, unless he had been absolutely compelled to do so. 

1 To-day the king's speech at the opening of parliament is made in the House 
of Lords, and the members of the House of Commons, headed by their speaker, 
attend the king there in order to hear what he has to say. 



1643] BEGINNING OF THE WAR. 273 

In spite of these political difficulties an agreement might 
still have been reached had it not been for the religious ques- 
tion. The dispute regarding political supremacy became ten- 
fold more serious when its settlement threatened men with the 
loss of their religious liberties. The Puritans believed that the 
supremacy of the king meant the overthrow of their faith; 
the Anglicans believed that the supremacy of parliament meant 
the summoning of an assembly of divines to change the prayer 
book, and to reform the government of the Anglican church. 
No compromise between these views was possible. 

269. Royalists (Cavaliers) and Parliamentarians (Roundheads). 
— England was divided into two opposing forces. A great 
majority of the House of Lords and a third of the House of 
Commons followed the king. Outside of parliament, the bulk 
of the gentry and landowners, the cathedral cities, and the 
university centres, like Oxford and Cambridge, were on the 
side of the king ; while the inhabitants of the towns, the manu- 
facturers, merchants, and artisans, were on the side of parlia- 
ment. Though exact lines cannot be drawn, we may say that 
socially the nobility were on one side, the freeholders and 
yeomanry on the other; that industrially the landowners were 
on one side, the commercial and trading classes on the other; 
and that geographically the west and north stood for the king, 
against the more thickly populated regions of the south and 
east, which supported parliament. Yet, in fact, the history of 
the war shows family divided against family, town against 
town, district against district. 

270. Beginning of the War. — Parliament had the advantage 
in money and other resources, because it controlled the navy 
and the leading sea-ports, and was supported by London and 
the rich manufacturing towns. But when the war began, the 
king was at first successful, because he had on his side the 
cavaliers and men-at-arms, whose profession was that of fight- 
ing. The battle of Edgehill, fought on October 23, 1642, 
resulted in a defeat for the parliamentarians. Hampden was 
killed in June, 1643, and by September parliament was suffi- 



274 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1644 

ciently discouraged to turn to Scotland for aid. In the Solemn 
League and Covenant parliament made a bargain with the 
Scottish Presbyterians, by which, in return for arraed assist- 
ance, it promised to establish, if possible, Presbyterianism in 
England. But the great mass of the Independents, and Crom- 
well in particular, did not like this compromise with Presbyte- 
rianism. Cromwell advocated religious liberty, and he disliked 
not only the church system of the Presbyterians, but their 
intolerance, also. From the time that parliament entered into 
the Solemn League and Covenant with Scotland may be dated 
the beginning of a separation between the Presbyterians and 
Independents. 

The first decisive battle of the war was fought on July 2, 
1644, at Marston Moor. On one side were the Scots, the parlia- 
mentary army under Pairfax, and the cavalry of the eastern 
counties under Cromwell; on the other were the royalists 
under Prince Rupert, son of the king's sister Elizabeth, queen 
of Bohemia (see p. 257). The battle was long and for a time 
doubtful ; but Cromwell's cavalry, the famous " Ironsides," 
won the day by their splendid discipline. The victory of 
Marston Moor gave to the parliamentarians the control of the 
north. 

271. The New Model Army: End of the War. — A more im- 
portant result of the battle was the prominence it gave to 
Cromwell, who from now on labored to increase the efficiency 
of the army. During the remainder of the year 1644 and the 
spring of 1645 an entire change was effected in the army or- 
ganization. The soldiers were regularly paid, a rigorous 
discipline was introduced, and a high code of moral conduct 
was enforced. For officers Cromwell would not have politi- 
cians, gentlemen, or adventurers ; he demanded men who 
were good fighters, and who were so strongly imbued with a 
love for the cause as not to be ready to make terms with the 
king after every failure. In compliance with the " Self-deny- 
ing Ordinance," according to which no member of parliament 
was to hold command in the army, many old officers resigned 



1647] THE INDEPENDENTS AND THE ARMY. 275 

their positions. Sir Thomas Fairfax became commander-in- 
chief, with Cromwell as lieutenant-general, who, though a mem 
ber of parliament, was retained because his services could not 
be dispensed with. Thus the army was not only inspired with 
religious fervor and ready to fight with faith in God and its 
cause, but was also well disciplined and splendidly led. 

This fighting force was got ready none too soon, for in Scot= 
land there appeared for the king a new ally, who was carrying 
all before him. The fiery young earl of Montrose, at the head 
of his Highlanders, had beaten down the Presbyterian leader, 
Argyle, the head of the Campbells, and was winning victory 
after victory with lightning-like rapidity. The Scottish army 
was therefore needed to fight Montrose at home ; and upon the 
New Model Army of Cromwell fell the brunt of sustaining the 
war in England. On June 14, 1645, this splendid praying and 
fighting force won the battle of Nasehy and crushed out the 
last hope that the king had of ultimate success. The war con- 
tinued for a year longer, but ended with the surrender of 
Oxford to the parliamentarians on June 24, 1646. 

272. The Independents and the Army. — After the church 
party withdrew from parliament, the Presbyterians were in the 
majority, and in a series of measures attempted to transform 
the church. They discarded the prayer book, introduced the 
famous Westminster Catechism, and ordered the abolition of 
Episcopacy and the establishment of Presbyterianism. But 
just as the church party had given way to the Presbyterians, 
so now the latter gave way to the more tolerant, but more anti- 
monarchical, body of Independents, who, though a minority in 
parliament, were the dominant factor in the army. 

At the close of the first civil war in June, 1646, the army was 
master of the situation. To the consternation of the Presby- 
terian leaders, it refused to disband at the command of parlia- 
ment, and at a meeting in aplain near Newmarket (June 4, 1647) 
issued a Solemn Engagement of the Army, saying that it would 
hold together until its demand of equal rights and common 
freedom for all should be granted. In August it voted that 



276 THE STUAETS AND PARLIAMENT. [1647 

parliament was too absolute and ought to come to an end, and 
at the same time it voted to impeach eleven members, who were 
considered responsible for the Presbyterian policy. Parliament, 
thoroughly frightened, yielded, and the eleven members with- 
drew from the House. At this juncture London rose in defence 
of the Presbyterian majority, and Cromwell, who had thrown in 
his lot with the army, occupied the city. The result was most 
important. As the royalists were excluded from parliament 
and as the army had compelled the Presbyterian leaders to with- 



From a photograph. 
Carisbeooke Castle. 

It was to this stronghold that Charles I fled from Hampton Court, 
November 11, 1647. 

draw likewise, the old Long Parliament was beginning to lose 
its character as a representative body. Though it still called 
itself parliament, it represented the people of England only in 
name. The real power lay in the hands of Cromwell and the 
soldiers. 

273. Second Civil "War: Pride's Purge. — The leaders of the 
army now tried to negotiate with the king, who, since the begin- 
ning of 1647, had been confined first at Holenby House and later 
at Hampton Court. But their negotiations were prevented by 



1648] SECOND CIVIL WAR: PRIDE'S PURGE. 277 

the escape of the king and his flight to Carisbrooke Castle in 
the Isle of Wight (November 11-14, 1647). To promote dis- 
cord among the Puritans Charles opened negotiations with the 
Scots, who were dissatisfied with the behavior of the English 
parliament toward them. The king promised them religious 
concessions in return for military aid. The threatened danger 
of a Scottish invasion for the moment united parliament and the 
army against the king, and both sides prepared for war. 

But party lines were no longer those of the earlier period ; 
many who formerly fought against the king now went over to 
his side, fearing that the army wished to make changes in gov- 
ernment much more radical than those made at the beginning 
of the Long Parliament in 1640-1641. Popular risings in the 
name of the king took place in Kent and Essex; the royal- 
ists rose in Wales ; and in July, 1648, the Scots sent an army 
across the frontier to aid them. 

But the war was short. Fairfax, in a battle at Maidstone, 
June 2, 1648, put down the Kentish revolt, and by August, 
Cromwell, who had been sent into Wales, had not only starved 
into surrender the royalists in Pembroke Castle, but, hastening 
north, won the battle of Preston against the Scottish army. 
Ten days later, August 25, 1648, Fairfax ended the war by 
the seizure of Colchester in Essex. 

The second civil war had decisive results. It embittered the 
army against the king and made it fierce, implacable, and vin- 
dictive. It made the leaders resolve "if ever the Lord brought 
them back again in peace, to call Charles Stuart, that man of 
blood, to an account for the blood he had shed and the mis- 
chief he had done to his utmost against the Lord's cause and 
peo]3le in these poor nations." When parliament, in which 
the majority was still Presbyterian, refused to break off nego- 
tiations with the king at the request of the army. Colonel Pride 
was sent to expel the Presbyterian majority from the House of 
Commons. Pride carried out his orders to the letter, and 
"purged" the House of the one hundred and forty-three Presby- 
terian members, leaving the Independents in control, December 



278 



THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 



[1648 



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1649] THE COMMONWEALTH. 279 

6, 1648. Thus the Long Parliament ceased to be representative 
in any sense of the word, and under the name of the Rump Par- 
liament became only a partisan revolutionary committee, pre- 
pared to wreak its vengeance on the king. 

274. The Execution of Charles I. — On January 6, 1649, the so- 
called parliament passed an act creating a high court of justice of 
one hundred and thirty-five persons, to try the king for attempt- 
ing " to subvert the ancient and fundamental laws and liberties 
of the nation, introducing in their place a tyrannical and arbi- 
trary government." Nearly half of the men named refused to 
serve, but the remainder, on January 21, 1649, proceeded with the 
trial. The king, denying the right of the court to try him, re- 
fused to plead and was condemned to death. On January 30 
he was conducted to the scaffold erected outside of the banquet- 
ing hall of the palace of Whitehall, and there beheaded in the 
presence of the citizens of London. That he deserved punish- 
ment, no one can deny ; but that he deserved such extreme pun- 
ishment from a tribunal neither legal nor competent, certainly 
no one can affirm. The manner of his trial and his own com- 
posure and dignity at the scaffold raised him in the eyes of the 
people to the place of a martyr and overshadowed his real guilt. 

275. The Commonwealth. — The Rump Parliament immedi- 
ately appointed a council of state and voted to abolish the office 
of king, on the ground that it was unnecessary, burdensome, and 
dangerous to liberty. It abolished also the House of Lords as 
useless, and dangerous to the people of England. On May 19, 
1649, to complete its work, it proclaimed the republic, or com- 
monwealth ; and on the great seal placed the legend, " In the 
first year of freedom by God's blessing restored." 

From the monarchy of 1640 England had passed through 
reform and civil war to the republic of 1649. But Cromwell 
and the Independent leaders wanted no democratic republic. 
England was in no condition to make constitutional experi- 
ments ; she needed a powerful governing body to meet the 
dangers that threatened her, and she found it in the Eump 
Parliament, which consisted of about one hundred men, and 



1651] THE REPUBLIC FIRMLY ESTABLISHED. 281 

which had more actual power than ever had a Tudor or Stuart 
sovereign. A government controlled by such an absolute body 
was bound to be a kind of despotism. 

276. The Republic becomes firmly Established. — The execu- 
tion of the king excited a feeling of horror both at home and 
abroad. Never had such an event occurred in the history of 
Europe. The republic had not a friend among the foreign 
powers, and at home it was opposed by the royalists on one 
side and the democrats, or Levellers, on the other. Ireland 
was in revolt ; Scotland had already proclaimed Prince Charles, 
son of Charles I, as her king ; and the royalists of England 
were preparing to cooperate with the Irish and Scots. The 
moment was critical, for an invasion from Ireland or Scotland 
might lead to the overthrow of the republic. 

The republic first turned its attention to the uprising in 
Ireland. On August 13, 1649, Cromwell landed in Dublin, and 
the Irish proved powerless in the presence of his well-disci- 
plined and well-officered force. " Ireland was devastated from 
end to end and a third of its population perished during the 
struggle." Having subdued the Irish people in this brutal 
way, Cromwell set about restoring order and prosperity. He 
confiscated two-thirds of the Irish lands and settled English 
colonists upon them; he endeavored to suppress Roman Ca- 
tholicism and to introduce Protestantism ; and he undertook to 
administer justice impartially. Furthermore, he allowed Ire- 
land free trade with England, and later admitted English 
colonists in Ireland to representation in the English parlia- 
ment. But in the end his policy proved a failure in almost 
every particular. 

In Scotland, where both government and royalists supported 
the claims of Prince Charles, Cromwell suppressed the uprising 
with force. At Dunbar (September, 1650) and Worcester (Sep- 
tember, 1651) he crushed the Scottish army, and in so doing 
destroyed not only the hopes of Prince Charles and the Scottish 
royalists, but the independence of Scotland, also. General 
Monck, entering Scotland, completed the reduction of that 



282 



THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 



[1651 



kingdom. Scotland was united to England, and later the Scots 
found representation in the English parliament. After many 
romantic adventures Prince Charles reached the Continent 
and took up his residence first in France and afterward in 
Germany and the Netherlands. 

While Cromwell was winning victories on land, Blake, with 
the navy, swept royalist privateers from the seas. Special 
commissioners sent to America received the allegiance of Mary- 
land and Virginia, both royalist colonies. The American 
colonies in New England were Puritan in origin and sympathy 
and not only remained loyal to parliament, but aided the com- 
monwealth in its efforts against the Dutch. The successes of 

Cromwell and Blake 
relieved the republic 
of danger and raised 
immensely .its pres- 
tige among the for- 
eign powers. 

To the same end 
but in a different 
way worked the poet 
Milton, who accepted 
the office of secretary 
for foreign tongues to 
the council of state. 
Milton's remarkable 
command of the Latin 
language, in which 
dignified correspond- 
ence was carried on 
and formal treaties 
were written, did 
much to remove the 
feeling that England 
had fallen into the hands of coarse, unlettered zealots. There 
never had been a time in the history of England when so many 




John Milton. 

From a miniature after Janssen in 
the "Victoria and Albert Museum. 



1654] THE DUTCH WAK AND ENGLISH COMMERCE. 283 

pamphlets and papers appeared, as after the downfall of the 
Star Chamber and the censorship of the press in 1641. In 
this era the modern newspaper begins, and among the pamph- 
leteers Milton holds a high place for his writings in defence of 
the commonwealth and a free press. 

277. The Dutch War and English Commerce. — A very im- 
portant part of the policy of England related to commerce and 
trade. The expansion of England nnder Elizabeth and James 
I had been checked by the civil war; and in the meantime 
Holland, freed from war with Spain by the truce of 1608, was 
rapidly becoming the mistress of the world's commerce. 
England's commercial leadership, therefore, demanded that the 
Dutch supremacy be overthrown. 

Parliament began the attack on Dutch commerce in the 
famous Navigation Act of 1651, which provided that no goods 
of Asia, Africa, or America should be imported into England 
or any of her colonies except in ships owned and manned by 
Englishmen. This act put into the form of a general statute 
England's policy toward the colony of Virginia since 1630, a 
policy not always successfully carried out. The larger act led 
to war because Holland would not give up her trade without 
a struggle and England was determined to control her own 
trade herself. Besides this, the Dutch sympathized with the 
Stuarts because their stadtholder, William of Orange, had mar- 
ried Mary, the daughter of Charles I. 

The war lasted a year (1652-1653) and was almost entirely 
a naval struggle, with Blake on one side and Admiral Von Tromp 
on the other. Blake won three naval victories in 1653, and 
this success so discouraged Holland, already suffering from 
disaffection and financial troubles at home, that she gave up 
the struggle. In April, 1654, a treaty was finally arranged by 
which England received compensation for injuries received at 
the hands of Dutch merchants, and Holland tacitly recognized 
the claims advanced in the Navigation Act. In the same year 
a treaty was signed with Denmark, which admitted England 
to the Baltic, and with Portugal, which strengthened England's 



284 



THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 



[1654 



nold in India. Exactly how far the Navigation Act affected 
Dutch trade it is difficult to say, but from this period may be 
dated the decline of the commercial supremacy of Holland 
and the beginning of that of England. Cromwell's greatest 
achievement was to give England a prominent place in the 
commercial world. 

278. The Incapacity of Parliament : the Protectorate. — The 
Rump Parliament and its Council of State had been nominally 
the ruling power, though the real power lay in the hands of 
Cromwell and the army. Cromwell began to grow impatient 
with the parliament, and charged it with neglecting its busi- 
ness, and with spending its time talking instead of doing. So 
on April 20, 1653, calling his soldiers, he drove out the mem- 
bers and locked the 
doors. 

After an unfortu- 
nate experiment with 
a gathering of selected 
"godly men," famil- 
iarly called " Bare- 
bone's Parliament," 
from one of its mem- 
bers, Prais e-G o d 
Barebone, Cromwell 
accepted a written 
constitution drawn 
up by the officers of 
the army, called the 
Instrument of Govern- 
ment (1654), the only 
written constitution 
that England ever 
had. It provided for 
a head, the Protector, and for a parliament elected once in 
three years by all men possessing property worth £200. This 
high property qualification shows the army's distrust of the 




Oliver Ckomwell. 
From an engraving by John Faber. 



1654] CROMWELL'S WORK. 285 

mass of the people ; it also shows that the Puritan idea of the 
"godly men" ruling the "ungodly" had passed away. The 
high-water mark of the Puritan revolution had been reached 
with the Barebone Parliament and the new system began the 
return to the old order of things. Cromwell was chosen Pro- 
tector for life, and for six years thereafter the government of 
England was a Protectorate. 

279. Cromwell's Work. — The ordinances which Cromwell 
and his council issued, dealing with the reorganization and 
strengthening of the kingdom, show the Protector to have been 
a statesman of large powers. He completed the union of Eng- 
land, Ireland, and Scotland, and worked out the representa- 
tion of each county in the English parliament. He reorganized 
the treasury ; reformed the penal code, by decreasing the num- 
ber of crimes for which a man could be hanged ; attempted to 
reform men's manners, by forbidding duelling, cock-fighting, 
horse-racing, and gambling, and by requiring a more fit observ- 
ance of Sunday;^ encouraged free schools, and strengthened 
the universities. Yet all the legal and constitutional measures 
of this period, having been adopted by a revolutionary govern- 
ment, find no place in the statute book of England. 

More important, because more permanent, was his foreign 
policy. By this he sought to accomplish three things : (1) to 
protect and unite the Protestants of Europe ; (2) to develop 
English commerce wherever possible; and (3) to thwart all 
attempts of the Stuarts to regain their throne. He found it 
difficult to arrange England's relations with France and Spain. 
These two Continental powers had been at war since 1635, and 

1 " It was superstitious to keep Christmas or to deck the house with holly 
and ivy. It was superstitious to dance round the village Maypole. It was 
flat popery to eat a mince pie. The rough sport, the mirth and fun of ' Merry 
England ' were out of an England called with so great a calling. . . . The 
long struggle between the Puritans and playwrights ended in the closing of 
every theatre." — Green, Shorter History. Yet it must be remembered that 
the Puritans had reason for many of these things. English social life had 
become in many respects coarse and debasing. Puritanism introduced a 
higher moral tone. 



286 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1656 

Cromwell was uncertain with which of them to make an alliance. 
France was supporting the Stuarts, and- Spain was England's 
old-time enemy. In either case, Cromwell was determined to 
obtain advantages for England. Spain refused his demand 
that English merchants in Spanish ports should be free from 
the interference of the Inquisition, and that English colonists 
and traders should trade freely in the Spanish West Indies. 
So Cromwell sent a secret expedition under Admiral Penn, 
William Penn's father, to the West Indies, and tried to extend 
England's colonial empire by annexing Spanish islands and 
cutting off Spanish trade. At the same time he sent Blake 
into the Mediterranean to win respect there for the English 
flag. The expedition under Penn failed in its object, only 
Jamaica being captured. Blake, however, entered on a career 
which is only equalled by that of his great predecessor, Drake. 
In 1655, when Spain, thoroughly aroused, declared war against 
England, Blake captured a Spanish treasure-fleet, and sent to 
England over £600,000 in gold and silver. Shortly afterward 
he destroyed sixteen Spanish galleons in the harbor of Cadiz. 

These events made inevitable an alliance between England 
and Prance, and on March 23, 1657, a treaty was signed. 
Cromwell cannot be said to have shown great foresight in 
making an alliance with Prance against Spain, for he aided 
thereby a growing state that was destined to be the great- 
est of England's rivals in the years to come. In his commer- 
cial and colonial policy he accomplished his grandest work ; 
for by making treaties of commerce, breaking the commercial 
supremacy of the Dutch, winning a foothold in Jamaica in the 
West Indies, and endeavoring to colonize that island, he laid the 
foundations not only for England's leadership in commerce, but 
also for her great colonial empire. 

280, Experiments in Government (i 654-1 658). — Cromwell 
tried a great many ways of governing England, but he did not 
succeed very well with any of them. As we have seen, he got 
rid of the Eump Parliament in 1653, and substituted for it the 
Barebone Parliament in the same year. But that experiment 



1658] CEOM WELL'S PLACE IN HISTOKY, 287 

failed, and in 1654 he accepted a constitution, the Instrument 
of Government, and tried to work with a parliament elected 
under the provisions of that constitution. But this parliament, 
composed mostly of Presbyterians and moderate Independents, 
insisted on amending the constitution ; whereas Cromwell felt 
that it was their business not to waste time talking about a new 
constitution, but to govern England as well as possible with 
the constitution they already possessed. So in January, 1655, 
he dismissed parliament altogether, and until September, 1656, 
governed without it, but in strict accord with the constitution. 

Need of money compelled Cromwell to call another parlia- 
ment in January, 1657. By this body an address was adopted, 
known as the Humble Petition and Advice, asking Cromwell to 
accept a new constitution and to assume the name and office of 
king. Cromwell rejected the royal title, but accepted the new con- 
stitution, and in so doing helped to bring England back to the 
form of government which she had had before 1649. The office of 
Protector was kingly in all but name, and for the former legis- 
lative body of but one chamber was substituted an upper and a 
lower house. These two houses came at once into conflict over 
the question as to whether or not the upper house should be 
called a House of Lords ; and Cromwell, growing angry because of 
the dispute, put an end to the parliament, on February 4, 1658. 

This was the last of the Protector's experiments in constitu- 
tional government. Had he lived, he undoubtedly would have 
persevered in the attempt to establish a stable government. 
There is no doubt that he intended to call a new parliament 
which in the prevailing sentiment of the country must have 
been monarchical in sympathy. It is far from impossible that 
had he lived, he would himself have assumed the title of king. 
But on September 3, 1658, the anniversary of Dunbar and Wor- 
cester, he died, worn out with anxiety, care, and family affliction. 

281. Cromwell's Place in History. — Cromwell's work was 
finished. By his genius as a soldier, he had checked the abso- 
lutism of the Stuarts and had brought England, a compact and 
united state, out of the dangers of the civil war. By his vigor 



288 



THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 



[1659 



as a statesman, lie had raised England's prestige abroad and 
had prepared the way for the greater England that was to 
come. At home he had fought for liberty of conscience, had 
set before the people a high standard of morals and justice, 
and had effected a union of Scotland and Ireland with England. 
In these three particulars his ideals found little support in the 
reaction that followed, though they were destined to become 
in the end a part of England's inheritance. 

But in the highest sense of the word Cromwell cannot be 
called a really great statesman because he did not plan con- 
sistently for the future. He seized each occasion as it arose, 

and in meeting diflS.- 
cult situations often 
showed statesmanlike 
instinct. He set prec- 
edents of great worth 
to England, concern- 
ing toleration, repre- 
sentative government, 
law, and justice ; but 
in no one particular 
was he able to carry 
his work to comple- 
tion. He might have 
established in Eng- 
land an orderly sys- 
tem of government, 
had he lived, but his 
death left his work 
unfinished. Much 
that took place during 
his administration of 
England in the field 
of commerce and the 
colonies was the work of others, due to the demands of business 
and trade, and to the naturally energetic and adventurous char- 




General Monck. 

From a miniature by S. Cooper 
in the collection of the King. 



1669] THE RESTOKATION OF THE STUARTS. 289 

acter of the English people. It is to Cromwell's credit that he 
generally approved of these efforts, though it is doubtful if he 
ever had a true appreciation of their significance for England's 
future. 

282. The Restoration of the Stuarts. — Cromwell was suc- 
ceeded by his eldest son, Eichard. But Eichard Cromwell 
was wholly incompetent to meet the difficult situation ; and in 
May, 1659, the army officers, united with the extreme republi- 
cans, forced him to abdicate, and restored the Eump Parlia- 
ment. This body at once came into conflict with the army 
that restored it. Then General Monck, who commanded the 
army in Scotland, took matters into his own hands, marched 
to London, and forced the Eump Parliament to admit again 
the Presbyterian members whom Pride had driven out in 1648. 
He then demanded that this restored parliament should vote 
its own dissolution and issue writs for the summoning of a 
convention, to be fairly and freely elected by all who had the 
right to vote. Thus Monck not only saved England from 
anarchy and possibly a third civil war, but he made it possible 
for the kingdom to return peaceably to constitutional govern- 
ment. 

The form that this government took was bound to be mo- 
narchical. Men cannot change their institutions suddenly and 
expect such changes to be permanent. The reforms which 
the Long Parliament made in 1640 and 1641 were necessary 
because the personal rule of Charles I was dangerous to the 
peace and contentment of the greater part of the people of Eng- 
land. But the changes made by the Eump Parliament in 1649 
were revolutionary and could not last. Even under the Com- 
monwealth a majority of the English people was in favor of a 
return to the former system of government, and as soon as Eng- 
lishmen had a chance to express their opinion freely they 
showed that they did not like Cromwell's experiments. The 
forms and methods of government are a natural growth and 
cannot be changed suddenly. If they are so changed by force, 
they will always in the end return to a condition very much 



290 



THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 



[1660 



like that which had existed before the revolution took place. 
One reason why England has such a strong constitution is that 
she has had very few revolutions. 

283. The Convention. — The Convention, composed of the 
moderate men of all parties, attempted to set in order the polit- 
ical and religious affairs of the nation. It invited Charles 
II to return, thus restoring the monarchy ; it disbanded the 
army of the commonwealth, thus getting rid of a body that 
had threatened to become an instrument of tyranny ; and it 
proclaimed a general pardon, except for the judges who had 
condemned Charles I. But it showed its spirit of reaction and 

revenge by putting to 
death thirteen of the 
judges, and by order- 
ing the body of Crom- 
well to be torn from 
its grave in West- 
minster Abbey and 
hanged at Tyburn. 

Exceedingly diffi- 
cult to settle were the 
questions relating to 
land, the revenues, 
and the church. The 
Convention returned 
to the king the lands 
of the crown, and gave 
back to the church 
and the royalists such 
lands as they had not 
sold of their own ac- 
cord. It performed 
its greatest act when 
it abolished feudal 
tenures, for thereafter every man held his land by an oath of 
fealty and the payment of a j&xed rent. This new system did 




Charles II as a Boy. 

From a miniature by John Hoskins 
in the Montagu House Collection. 



1665] REACTION: THE CAVALIER PARLIAMENT. 291 

away with all feudal incidents, aids, and obligations, and con- 
tributed more to England's progress than did any other act of 
the period. The Convention found it impossible to settle the 
church question. An attempt was made to effect a sort of 
compromise between the Episcopal and Presbyterian systems, 
but nothing came of it ; for Charles II, who returned to Eng- 
land on May 25, 1660, dissolved the Convention in the follow- 
ing December, before it had completed its work. 

284. Character of the Reign of Charles II. — Charles was now 
king of England, but his position was very different from that 
occupied by his father and grandfather. He had been restored 
by the nation to the throne, which legally he had occupied 
since 1649 ; during the twenty years preceding his restoration 
the nation had learned many lessons regarding kings. They 
were determined that Charles should reign in no other way 
than according to the constitution as it had been shaped by 
the important reforms of 1641, But the question as to whether 
the sovereign power lay in the king or in the parliament of the 
nation had not yet been settled. To escape anarchy the people 
welcomed Charles to his throne ; but politically this was only 
a compromise, an experiment to prove whether or not a Stuart 
could be a constitutional king. By tact and shrewdness 
Charles II was able to postpone the settlement of the problem 
and to reign over England for twenty-five years. 

285. Reaction : the Cavalier Parliament. — After Charles had 
dissolved the Convention, writs were issued in due form in 
the king's name for the summons of a regular parliament. 
This parliament was even more royalist than the king himself„ 
For the most part Charles was inclined to be tolerant, but the 
Cavalier Parliament had scarcely met when it made a savage 
attack on the Puritans and their religion, and in December, 
1661, began its double work of persecuting the Non-conformists 
(p. 253) and of reestablishing the Anglican church by the fol- 
lowing acts. 

1. Corporation Act. In May, 1661, all persons holding office 
in the towns, where the Puritans were most numerous, were re- 



292 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1665 

quired to renounce the Solemn League and Covenant (p. 274), and 
to take the sacrament according to the' rites of the Anglican 
church. 2. The Act of Uniformity. A year later every clergy- 
man was required to use the prayer book, under penalty of los- 
ing his position. 3. The Five Mile Act. In 1665 all clergy- 
men who had not obeyed the Act of Uniformity — and there 
were some two thousand who had not done so — were forbidden 
to come within five miles of any city or corporate town. These 
acts were generally ascribed to the king's chief adviser, Sir 
Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, and are therefore usually known 
as the Clarendon Code ; but though Clarendon made it his object 
to affect the restoration of the Anglican church and to suppress 
all that remained of Puritanism, he was no more responsible for 
these acts than was any other member of the Anglican party 
in the Cavalier Parliament. These acts, which show that par- 
liament could be as intolerant as any king in the past, were the 
last measures of the kind in English history. 

But the reaction was not limited to matters of religion. Dur- 
ing the reign of Charles II there was prevalent a desire to re- 
verse all that had been done during the period of the Puritan 
supremacy, and to break away from the soberness and gloom of 
the Puritan epoch. Men and women became gay and pleasure 
loving. Taking their cue from the fashions of the French court, 
where many had lived during the exile, they changed their 
books, their dress, their manners, and their speech. At court 
and in society Erench customs prevailed ; vice and profligacy 
increased ; scepticism became fashionable ; gambling, card-play- 
ing, and drinking became habits of everyday life. Yet, at 
the same time, it must be remembered that among the mass 
of the people in towns and country sobriety and right living 
prevailed. 

286. Parliament's Conflict with the King. — Not only were the 
members of the Cavalier Parliament eager to persecute the Non- 
conformists, but they were also determined to retain all the 
political advantages that their predecessors had won and to 
exercise the parliamentary privilege of criticising the king's 



1667] FALL OF CLARENDON. 293 

policy and of controlling the king's actions. Certain events that 
occurred after 1662 had made them suspicious of the king and 
led them to doubt his loyalty to England. 

In the first place, parliament did not look with favor on the 
king's marriage in 1662 with Catherine of Braganza, a Portu- 
guese princess. It was angry when Charles sold Dunkirk in the 
Spanish Netherlands to the French king in the same year, and 
looked with distrust on the extravagances of the king's court and 
the profligate character of his life. In the second place, parlia- 
ment blamed the king and Clarendon for the mismanagement 
of the Dutch war of 1665, which began auspiciously, but which 
brought in the end much trouble and humiliation to England. 

287. War with Holland. — In 1664 England, jealous of the 
growth of Dutch commerce, which the act of 1651 had failed 
to destroy, had attacked the Dutch colonists in Africa and in 
New Netherland in America, where a Dutch settlement sepa- 
rated the English colonies in New England from those in 
Maryland and Virginia. Louis XIV, king of Erance, glad to 
see two Protestant and rival powers fighting each other, 
encouraged the Dutch in the war, and for two years it dragged 
on with varying fortune. 

In 1666 London was visited with a great plague and a great 
fire, both of which caused extraordinary loss and confusion. 
The Dutch, taking advantage of these conditions, sent a fleet 
up the Thames. It entered the Medway, burnt the English 
fleet, and blockaded London. This humiliating incident led 
to an early peace, and in July, 1667, the treaty of Breda was 
signed. Holland, divided by factions and alarmed at the 
grasping policy of Louis XIV, made favorable terms with 
England and gave her New Amsterdam in America (later 
called New York in honor of the king's brother James, duke 
of York) in return for the undisputed possession of the Spice 
Islands in the Indian Ocean. 

288. Fall of Clarendon. — Since 1660 Clarendon had been the 
chief minister of the realm ; but in becoming lord chancellor 
he had not realized how much England had changed since the 



294 THE STUAKTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1670 

days when lie sat as Edward Hyde in the Long Parliament. 
Parliament held him responsible for the sale of Dunkirk, for 
the burning of the English ships in the Medway, and, in 
general, for bad government and the misuse of funds. 
Charles II did nothing to save his minister; for he did not 
like Clarendon's stern uprightness, and was rather glad than 
otherwise to be rid of a minister who criticised his immoral 
life and who had no sympathy with his desire to tolerate 
Roman Catholics and Dissenters. So in 1667 Charles dis- 
missed Clarendon, and in the same year parliament impeached 
him and banished him from England. 

289. Financial Difficulties of Charles II : Intrigues with 
France. — England had fallen into a Avretched financial condi- 
tion. The Dutch war had shown there was not enough money 
in the treasury to run the kingdom. It is commonly said that 
Charles II spent the money that parliament allowed him on 
favorites and mistresses, but this assertion has been disproved 
by a study of the financial records of this period. In truth, 
Charles and his treasurer, the upright Southampton, did. not 
have money enough to pay the regular expenses, because the 
sums voted by parliament could not be collected, and the re- 
ceipts never actually equalled the amount, small enough at 
best, that parliament was willing to allow the king. The king 
had to make up the deficit in various ways. He turned into 
the treasury the dowry which his Portuguese wife brought him, 
as well as the money received from the sale of Dunkirk. He sold 
the crown lands and tried to help with the funds received. He 
borrowed money of private persons, promising to pay when the 
supplies granted by parliament came in. But all these devices 
proved of very little avail. So in 1668 Charles began secret 
negotiations with Louis XIV, hoping thereby to fill his treasury. 

Charles was willing to treat with Louis (1) because Eng- 
land's rivalry with Holland was as keen after the treaty of 
Breda as before ; (2) because, as he declared, he sympathized 
with Roman Catholicism and wished to bring England into 
close touch with the Catholic countries of the Continent ; and 



1679] THE EXCLUSION BILL: WHIGS AND TORIES. 295 

(3) because lie and his treasurer had been unable to meet 
the deficit in the treasury. Commercial, religious, and finan- 
cial reasons underlay these unpatriotic and secret negotiations 
with Louis XIV, which ended in the secret treaty of Dover, 
June 1, 1670. In return for a cash payment of £200,000, 
and more in the event of actual war, all of which was used to 
pay the daily expenses of the government, the king promised 
to aid Louis against the Dutch and to acknowledge himself a 
Eoman Catholic. The financial bankruptcy of England must 
be held in part responsible for this disgraceful treaty, and par- 
liament was responsible for the bad state of the finances. 

290. The Test Act. — Even to carry out this agreement with 
Louis, Charles did not openly declare himself a Eoman Catho- 
lic, and it is not even certain that he was really serious in his 
assertion to Louis XIV that he was one. He did, however, 
issue a declaration of indulgence, releasing Non-conformists — 
Eoman Catholics and Dissenters alike — from the operation of 
the Clarendon Code. But the pro-Anglican parliament was 
growing suspicious and compelled Charles to withdraw the dec- 
laration in 1673. Then it passed in the same year a Test 
Act, which declared that all who held office under the crown 
should receive the sacrament according to the rites of the An- 
glican church. In passing the act, parliament rebuked the 
king, and caused all Eoman Catholics to withdraw from office. 
The king's brother James, duke of York, resigned the office 
of lord high admiral. Furthermore, the war with the Dutch 
became increasingly unpopular, as the people realized that 
England was being made a mere cat's-paw by France. An- 
thony Ashley Cooper, who had been created earl of Shaftes- 
bury in 1672, and who, since the fall of Clarendon, had been 
closely associated with the king, was dismissed from office. 

291. The Exclusion Bill: Whigs and Tories. — Shaftesbury, 
after his dismissal, became the leader of the opposition, con- 
sisting chiefly of Dissenters, who believed it was lawful for 
parliament to compel the king to do what parliament and the 
people thought he ought to do. Led by Lord William Eussell 



296 



THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 



ri679 



in the House of Commons and by Shaftesbury in the House of 
Lords, the opposition directed an attack upon the duke of 
York, an avowed Eoman Catholic, in order to prevent his suc- 
cession to the throne. To this end an Exclusion Bill was drafted, 
but Charles prevented its passage by dissolving parliament. 
Another parliament was elected (October, 1679), but the king 

refused to summon it, 
and as parliament 
could not meet with- 
out a summons from 
the king, this body 
never assembled. 
The nation was divid- 
ing into two great 
parties whose strug- 
gles were to consti- 
tute party history in 
later times. Those 
who wished to. ex- 
clude the duke of 
York from the succes- 
sion and petitioned 
the king to summon 
parliament that an 
exclusion bill might 
be passed, were called 
the petitioners, or 
Whigs ; those who 
believed in the doc- 
trine of the divine right of kings and the right of the duke of 
York to succeed were the Abhorrers, because they expressed 
their abhorrence of the attempt to coerce the king and to ex- 
clude the duke, and they were nicknamed Tories} Shaftes- 




Mary, Daughter of James II. 

From a miniature by Netscher in 
the Welbeck Abbey Collection. 



1 The terms Whig and Tory were nicknames ; the former from Whigga- 
more, a Scottish Presbyterian ; the latter from a term given to a class of Irish 
bog-trotters, or outlaws, who were Roman Catholics. 



1681] THE COLONIES UNDER CHARLES II. 297 

bury, the leader of the Whigs, weakened his cause by bringing 
forward the duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles, 
as the king's successor, and by denying the claims of Mary, 
the daughter of James, who, as a Protestant and the wife of 
William of Orange, was popular with the nation. Charles saw 
his opportunity and quickly took advantage of it. He upheld 
the cause of his brother, the duke of York, refused to consider 
for a moment the claims of the duke of Monmouth, and when 
the opposition became violent, dissolved his parliament and re- 
fused to call another. A clever manipulation of parties, and 
the violent measures and quarrels of his opponents gave the 
victory to the king. 

292. The Colonies under Charles II. — While Whigs and Tories 
were in conflict at home England was making great strides in 
the world of commerce abroad. The Stuarts, whatever may 
have been their views on government, had definite ideas re- 
garding the growth of England's colonies and commerce ; for 
they saw in both of these an opportunity to increase the rev- 
enues of the crown. In 1663, by the grant of Carolina to Clar- 
endon and others, Charles had planted a new colony in America. 
In 1662 and 1663 he had transformed the colonies of Connec- 
ticut and Rhode Island into corporations, by charters that gave 
these colonies legal recognition and a true land title. In 1664 
he had granted to his brother, the duke of York, the province 
of New Netherland, the region between New England and 
Maryland, and, at the conclusion of the war with the Dutch, 
had obtained a confirmation of England's title to the territory. 
In the same year the duke of York granted to Berkeley and 
Carteret that portion later known as New Jersey. Einally, 
in 1681, almost at the close of the reign, Charles completed a 
splendid work of colonial expansion by granting to William 
Penn the province of Pennsylvania. This territory was given 
to Penn in honor of his father. Admiral Penn, and in recog- 
nition of an unpaid loan of £11,000, which the admiral had 
made to the king. 

Thus before the close of the reign of Charles II there existed 



298 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1679 

nine colonies on the continent of America, forming a continu- 
ous line of settlements along the Atlantic coast. 

293. Trade and Commerce. — Various councils and commis- 
sions to deal with trade had been appointed by the early- 
Stuarts and by Cromwell, but under Charles II and his suc- 
cessors the first successful attempt was made to deal ade- 
quately with commerce and the colonies. This attempt had 
two features : first, the appointment of various councils and 
committees to look after trade and the plantations, the most 
famous of which cam.e later in 1696 and was known as the 
Board of Trade (1696 to 1782) ; second, the passing of three 
Navigation Acts, in 1660, 1663, and 1672. These acts had as 
their objects (1) to promote English shipping by requiring that 
all ships trading with England must be owned by Englishmen, 
and the master and three-fourths of the seamen must be Eng- 
lish ; (2) to increase the revenue and resources of England by 
requiring that certain colonial commodities not produced in 
England should be brought there from the colonies before be- 
ing taken anywhere else ; and (3) to prevent the colonies from 
trading directly with the Continent by requiring that all goods 
from European countries destined for the colonies should first 
pass through English ports. These acts remained in force for 
more than a century and a half (till 1849). 

Thus England entered upon a new career as a commercial 
and colonial power. Her revenues increased, her shipping was 
extended, her colonies became her source of supply for those 
raw materials that she could not produce at home. Her manu- 
factures, notably of woollen cloth, increased rapidly and were 
sent over to her colonies in exchange for the raw materials that 
the colonies were encouraged to send to her. 

294. Constitutional Progress. — The reign of Charles II is 
noteworthy as an era of important advances in constitutional 
and legal matters. The king, though still possessing large 
powers, had ceased to be absolute, for no king henceforth 
would dare attempt to govern without parliament. The arbi- 
trary imposition of taxes was at an end. The House of Com- 



1685] 



JAMES II. 



299 



mons was holding the king's ministers responsible for the 
king's acts and was already inquiring into the way in which 
the king was spending the money granted him. The begin- 
nings of cabinet government can faintly be seen. High Com- 
missions and Star Chambers were institutions of the past ; jury 
trial was henceforth 
free and little liable 
to interference from 
either king or no- 
bility; and, most 
important of all, a 
Habeas Corpus Act 
was passed (1679), 
which declared that 
no man should be 
kept in prison for an 
indefinite length of 
time without a trial. 
The press was not 
free, as a rigid cen- 
sorship had been im- 
posed in 1662 which 
did not cease for 
more than thirty 
years. 

295. James II.— 
In February, 1685, 

Charles died and was succeeded by his brother, the duke of 
York, as James II. The latter was a far abler man than his 
brother, the late king, and had he been possessed of a little of 
the latter's shrewdness and tact, he might have succeeded well 
as a ruler. He was persistent and industrious, loyal to his 
word and his friends. He had had considerable experience 
with matters of business and government, having been head of 
the admiralty till 1673, and regent in Scotland during the last 
years of his brother's reign. But like his father, Charles I, 




James II. 
From an engraving by Peter van Gunst. 



300 



THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. 



[1685 



he was narrow-minded and intolerant, obstinate and merci- 
less, and always failed to understand the sentiments of his 
people until he had gone too far in his course to withdraw. 
While Charles II had been able not only to steer his way 
safely for twenty -five years, but even to prove himself in the 
end a stronger king than he had been at his accession, James 
succeeded in bringing matters to a crisis after a reign of less 
than three years. 

His failure is the more remarkable, inasmuch as he became 
king when circumstances were favorable to him ; when the 
Whigs were discredited ; when the bulk of the nation, resent- 
ing the extreme measures of Shaftesbury and his associates, 

were ready to give a 
Stuart, with a repu- 
tation for honesty, 
a fair trial. In 
three short years 
these conditions 
were exactly re- 
versed, a result for 
which the king him- 
self was wholly re- 
sponsible. 

296. Monmouth's 
Uprising : the Bloody 
Assizes. — James be- 
gan well. He prom- 
ised " to preserve 
the government as 
by law established." 
Parliament, com- 
posed of members 
who owed their 
election to the influence of the government, proved highly 
favorable to the king, and made large grants of supplies. 
Matters seemed to be prosperous both for the Tory party and 




James, Ddke of Monmouth. 

From an engraving by Blooteling 
after a portrait by Sir Peter Lely. 



1685] CONSEQUENCE OP THE REBELLION. 301 

for the king. But the Whigs, though beaten and exiled, were 
by no means in despair. Under the leadership of the duke of 
Monmouth they attempted to recover their power. In June, 
1685, Monmouth landed in Dorset, and his venture at first gave 
promise of success. But though romantic and dashing, he was 
incompetent and cowardly. He got into trouble with his col- 
leagues, wasted valuable time, and when at last he was ready 
to act, found the king's troops strongly intrenched against him. 
At Sedgemoor, July 6, 1685, he was defeated. He fled from 
the field of battle only to be captured and taken to London, 
where, begging piteously for life, he was beheaded. 

Monmouth deserves little pity, for, in all probability, he 
would have made a worthless king. But the punishment in- 
flicted on his followers, the too faithful friends of an undeserv- 
ing leader, stirs the soul to wrath. Many were seized and 
hanged on the spot, while scores of others were thiust into jail 
to await the coming of the justices, Jeffreys, the chief of the 
justices, though no worse than others of his time, aroused 
public horror because of the enjoyment he took in the work of 
the Bloody Assizes. He badgered, bullied, and sneered at his 
prisoners, and carried out a cruel law in a cruel manner. 
Three hundred prisoners were hanged, eight hundred were 
transported as slaves to the West Indies to endure a living 
death, while hundreds of others were flogged and imprisoned. 

297. Consequence of the Rebellion : the Roman Catholic 
Policy of James. — The failure of the Monmouth rebellion gave 
new strength to the government, and the ease with which it 
was suppressed led James to entertain false ideas of his own 
power. He believed that the time had come when he could re- 
establish Eoman Catholicism in ISngland, and he hoped to carry 
out his plan by exempting Eoman Catholics from the laws, 
passed during the reign of Charles II, against liberty of con- 
science and freedom of worship. So in November, 1685, when 
parliament reassembled, James demanded the repeal of the 
Test Act (p. 295). Parliament probably would not have re- 
pealed this act under any circumstances ; but its determination 



302 THE STUAKTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1687 

not to do so was strengthened by the fact that Louis XIV, only 
a short time before (October 18, 1685), had revoked the Edict 
of Nantes in France, driving from that country thousands upon 
thousands of Huguenots. Though a Tory body and friendly to 
the king, parliament rejected the king's proposal. 

Angry and disappointed, the king prorogued parliament and 
undertook to obtain his end in another way. Claiming the 
right as sovereign to grant special dispensation to any one who 
had broken a law, he at once applied this claim to the Test Act, 
and appointed Sir Edward Hales, a Roman Catholic, to a 
colonelcy in the new army, following this with other appoint- 
ments, till Protestant England was confronted not only with the 
overthrow of its constitutional liberties, but also with a possible 
Roman Catholic control of the government. Encouraged by his 
success, James applied his policy to the affairs of the church. 
For trifling offences he removed clergy of the church of Eng- 
land and put Roman Catholics in their places. He received 
the papal nuncio in 1687 — the first legate in England since 
Mary's reign — and conferred on him distinguished honors. He 
openly encouraged the Roman Catholics by authorizing the 
founding of schools and monasteries, and by encouraging them 
to issue pamphlets and books defending their faith. These 
many measures had their effect. The English people saw 
Roman Catholicism gradually creeping over the land. Tories, 
who hitherto had been devoted to the king, began to see that, 
by supporting the Stuarts and defending the doctrine of passive 
obedience, they were encouraging the success of the Roman 
Catholic cause, which they hated more than they did that of the 
Whigs. 

298. The Declaration of Indulgence : Opposition of the 
Bishops. — In 1687 James took a new step. Having asserted 
his right to dispense with the law (the Test Act) which ex- 
cluded Roman Catholics from office, he now asserted his right 
to suspend the law by issuing, without the consent of parlia- 
ment, a Declaration of Indulgence. " We do declare that it is 
our royal will and pleasure that henceforth [the penal laws 



1688] THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 303 

against the Non-conformists] be immediately suspended." This 
declaration favored Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, 
and Quakers, as well as Roman Catholics, and was by many 
received with satisfaction. Its purpose was to gain the support 
of the Dissenters, to humiliate the Anglican church, and to 
give a free opportunity for the application of the king's 
Roman Catholic policy. 

So far, little outward opposition had been expressed, but 
when James ordered the clergy to read the Declaration of 
Indulgence from their pulpits, he met with a refusal. Certain 
bishops, with the archbishop of Canterbury at their head, 
addressed a petition to him, begging him to desist. He 
ordered the seven bishops who had signed the petition to be 
tried for libel. On June 29 the trial took place. Public 
excitement increased, popular demonstrations in favor of the 
bishops were held, and when, on June 30, after a day's trial, 
the jury brought in a verdict of "not guilty," the joy of the 
people knew no bounds. 

299. The Revolution of i688. — The spirit of the nation was 
aroused. Even the Tories began to advocate resistance. The 
purpose of the revolution was threefold : (1) to assure a better 
security for the individual, against press laws, attacks on the 
corporations, and interference with the judiciary ; (2) to secure 
the supremacy of the Anglican church; and (3) to establish 
the supremacy of statute law over the royal prerogative, by 
forbidding any further dispensing or suspending of the 
law. 

The crisis, already inevitable, was hastened by the birth of 
a son to the king on June 10, 1688. This event promised 
permanence to the dynasty and seemed to guarantee to the 
Roman Catholics the continuance of a government and a 
policy favorable to them. It rendered wholly uncertain the 
accession of Mary, the daughter of James and the wife of the 
Protestant stadtholder of Holland, William of Orange. The 
Protestants saw no relief ahead, and their leaders determined 
to act at once. Seven prominent men, some Whigs and some 



304 THE' STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1689 

Tories, led by the earl of Danby, addressed a letter in cipher 
to the prince of Orange, inviting him to come to England to 
uphold and protect their constitutional liberties. For fifteen 
years William of Orange had been the leader of those who 
opposed the aggressions of Louis XIV. He was "the champion 
of Protestantism and the liberties of Europe against French 
ascendency." The invitation extended to him was, therefore, 
exceedingly significant, as it promised an entire reversal of 
England's home and foreign policy. 

300. Coming of William and Flight of James II. — To William 
the year 1688 was favorable, because Louis was at war on the 
Continent with the emperor and the League of Augsburg and 
could not easily attack Holland or aid James. He therefore 
accepted the invitation of the English leaders, and on October 
10, 1688, despatched to England a proclamation, setting forth 
his reasons for accepting, and declaring that his only object 
was " to obtain the assembling of a free and legal parliament 
which should decide all questions, public and private." Nine 
days later he set sail for England, with seventy ships and a 
Dutch army of fifteen thousand men. He disembarked at 
Torquay, on November 5. Peasantry, townspeople, and local 
militia flocked to his standard. In the north and east success- 
ful movements in his favor destroyed the king's hopes there, 
while defections from the royal army were of daily occurrence. 
Lord Cornbury, the king's nephew. Lord Churchill, later duke 
of Marlborough, his favorite and protege, and even his daugh- 
ter Anne and her husband. Prince George of Denmark, joined 
the insurgents. 

James was now ready to make concessions, but it was too 
late. Therefore, having first placed the queen and the little 
prince on a vessel bound for France, he left his palace of 
Whitehall on the banks of the Thames, and made his way to 
the coast. There he was stopped by fishermen and brought 
back to London. Later, however, he was allowed to escape 
first to Ireland and afterward to France, where he became a 
pensioner of the French king, whose ally he had been. Mean- 



1689] THE BILL OF EIGHTS. 305 

while William of Orange entered London amidst demonstra- 
tions of joy, and conferred with the leaders of the revolution 
regarding the organization of the government. By them 
William was requested to act as temporary governor, and the 
people were instructed to send their representatives, elected in 
the usual manner, to a convention (not a parliament, since a 
king had not called it) that should meet on January 22, 1689. 

The Convention met to decide the question of the succession. It 
resolved that James, by withdrawing from the kingdom, had 
abdicated, and that, therefore, the throne was vacant. It also 
resolved that it was inconsistent with the safety and welfare 
of the nation that a Roman Catholic prince should rule the 
kingdom. The Convention then offered the regency to William 
and the crown to Mary ; but on William's refusing to be " his 
wife's gentleman usher," it offered the crown to William and 
Mary jointly, with the understanding that the actual govern- 
ment of the kingdom should be in the hands of the king. 

301. The Bill of Rights. — The Convention also defined in a 
formal document the fundamental principles of the English 
Constitution. This document was the famous Declaration 
of Right, which was accepted by William and Mary on Feb- 
ruary 19, 1689; and later, as the Bill of Rights, was made a 
part of the law of the land by act of parliament, on Decem- 
ber 16, 1689. By this memorable document, the Bill of Rights, 
certain constitutional privileges of parliament and people were 
exactly stated, and declared to be the unchangeable law of the 
kingdom. 

The provisions of the hill summed up the chief issues which 
had been in dispute since 1660. The rights that James had 
claimed, to dispense with the laws, to levy money in any form 
without the consent of parliament, to maintain a standing army 
dependent on the king instead of on parliament, were declared 
illegal. The right of the people to petition, as the bishops had 
done, the right of electors to choose members of parliament 
without interference, the right of freedom of speech in parlia- 
ment, and the necessity of frequent meetings of parliament for 



306 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1688 

the amending, strengthening, and preserving of the laws, were 
all declared inalienable parts of the ancient rights and liberties 
of the English people. 

Lastly, a clause was inserted, stating that no Koman Catholic 
could possess the crown , and that after the death of William 
and Mary the succession should go to their children, or, in 
default of issue, to Anne and her children, or, in default of 
such, to the children of William by any other wife. After 
Mary's death, in 1694, and the death of Anne's only surviving 
son, the duke of Gloucester, in 1701, a further clause was added, 
settling the succession upon the granddaughter of James I, 
Sophia of Hanover, on the ground that she was the nearest 
Protestant heir. 

302. Results of the Revolution: Parliament, the Church, For- 
eign Policy. — This was the '^' great and glorious" revolution. 
Won without bloodshed, it marked a new era in England's, his- 
tory ; for it overthrew the doctrine of the divine right of kings 
and the passive obedience of the people and substituted there- 
for the right of the people to resist their rulers. Furthermore, 
it established the supremacy of statute law over the king's will 
and pleasure. It did not affect the right of hereditary succes- 
sion, but it handed over to parliament full power to limit the 
prerogative of the king and to take part in the actual govern- 
ment of the kingdom. 

In 1688 parliament expressed the will of the nation as nearly 
as the conditions of the time permitted ; that is, it expressed 
the will of the country gentlemen with landed estates in the 
counties, and of the official class in the boroughs, so far as 
the boroughs were represented at all. The right to vote in 
the counties was confined to wealthy freeholders ; but borough 
representation was a farce. Many growing towns were not 
represented ; others were at the disposal of the local officials, 
the great party leaders, or the king who had been accustomed 
to change the town charters to suit his purposes, or to compel 
the towns to elect the men he wanted. Though after 1688 
power passed into the hands of parliament, it can hardly be 



1689] ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY. 307 

said to have passed into the hands of the English people. 
That result was not attained for two centuries. 

303. The Act of Toleration. — The revolution was in large 
part the work of the established church, and it inevitably led 
to an important change in the position of that body. Hence- 
forth, the church of England had no cause to fear either the 
Roman Catholics on one side or the Dissenters on the other. 
The former were by special laws disqualified from holding 
office, bearing arms, or retaining control of churches or church 
lands ; the latter, — Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, 
and Quakers, — having given up hope of a compromise with the 
established church, were beginning to erect churches of their 
own. Toward the Dissenters a spirit of toleration was mani- 
fest, and in 1689 parliament passed the Toleration Act, which 
released the Dissenters from the operation of laws passed 
against them since Elizabeth's reign. Neither Roman Catholics 
nor Unitarians profited by this act, and all Non-conformists 
were excluded from holding office under the Test Act. But from 
this time forth Dissenters were free to worship independently, 
though legally and socially they still remained only a tolerated 
body. The church of England held the leading place in wealth, 
influence, and prestige, and was from this time forward, in an 
exact and well-defined sense of the term, the established church. 

304. England's Foreign Policy. — The revolution of 1688 en- 
tirely altered the foreign policy of England, for it committed 
her to prolonged and almost unbroken war with France. As a 
colonial and commercial power France had taken the place of 
Spain and, in part, of Holland. She had established colonies 
in America and Africa, and was seeking to establish a colonial 
and commercial empire. England was doing the same : she 
had colonies on the American seaboard, in the West Indies, in 
Africa, and in India; she was developing her navy and her 
commerce, and was gradually acquiring a tremendous interest 
in the world outside the island kingdom. This new rivalry 
between France and England led to a struggle not for the con- 
trol of feudal fiefs, as in former years, but for the supremacy 



308 THE STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT. [1689 

of the seas and the possession of the lands beyond the seas. 
When, therefore, in May, 1689, William III declared war apon 




From a •photograph. 
MucHENET Old Rectory. 

France, a new era in the foreign policy of England was begun. 
On December 30 England joined the League of Augsburg, a 
coalition of the principal Protestant countries of Europe. A 
mighty struggle, in which England was to take a leading part, 
was about to begin. 

The period since 1603 marks a great era of transition from 
older to more modern conditions of life, thought, and govern- 
ment. At the beginning nothing seemed definitely settled, 
neither the position of the church nor the power of parliament. 
Government was entirely in the hands of the king, as it had 
been for centuries (pp. 251, 252); the king received and dis- 
pensed the revenues and taxes, controlled the navy, managed the 
militia and the few permanent soldiers that existed, and granted 
privileges and pardons. The system of government was still 



1689] ENGLAND'S FOEEIGN POLICY. S09 

mediaeval. Commerce had scarcely begun, there were no 
colonies, and agriculture had improved very little. Eighty-five 
years later great changes had been wrought. Parliament had 
asserted its right to take the control of affairs out of the hands 
of the king, though it did not do so till after the death of 
William III ; the church of England had definitely obtained 
its position as the established church. Dissenters were given 
freedom of worship, and Roman Catholics were barred from 
all political and ecclesiastical rights. Commerce was making 
great strides, and colonies existed in America, India, and 
Africa. The navy had been reorganized, a permanent army was 
established under parliament, and a new system of financial 
management was introduced. The people, weary of the long 
religious conflict, welcomed a settled state of affairs that- they 
might turn to the gaining of prosperity at home and influence 
abroad. The reign of Charles II is noteworthy as the period 
when the history of modern England may be said to begin. 



CHAPTER XV. 

EXPANSION OF ENGLAND UNDER PARLIAMENTARY 

RULE. 

305. "William III. — -The new king was a foreigner, and be- 
longed to a people little liked by the English. He was bred as 
a soldier and was unfamiliar with the customs and traditions 
of English government and life. Accustomed to command, he 
wished to exercise all his powers as king and had little sym- 
pathy with the idea of government by parliament. Probably 
he did not fully understand the importance of the revolution 
of 1688, and was easily irritated by the quarrels of leaders and 
the bickerings of parties. He came to England determined to 
rule honorably and well, but his heart was not in his work there. 
War against Louis XIV was his mission in life ; everything else 
was secondary. As far as he personally was concerned, every 
act of his government was but a means to the eventual reduc- 
tion of the influence of France in Europe. As king he was 
neither Tory nor Whig, Anglican nor Dissenter. He desired 
to reconcile parties that he might make England strong to aid 
him in his military enterprises. He was his own first minister 
and was throughout his reign the centre and head of the govern- 
ment. The union of all parties, religious and political, under 
himself as the leader, was the dominant purpose of his reign, 
and because he was never able to bring about such union, there 
was no real harmony between king, ministers, and parliament. 
The period from 1689 to 1702 was, therefore, one of uncertainty 
as to the powers of government, and the definite results of the 
revolution of 1688 did not appear till after William's death. 

306. Resistance of the Scottish Highlanders. — William could 
not begin his chief work, war against France, till he had made 

310 



1691] 



UPEISING IN IRELAND. 



311 



secure his control in Scotland and Ireland, as well as in England, 
and had become undisputed ruler of the three kingdoms. When 
James II fled from 
England, the Scotch 
Covenanters abol- 
ished Episcopacy, 
and proclaimed Wil- 
liam and Mary sover- 
eigns of Scotland. 
But John Graham of 
Claverhouse, Vis- 
countDundee, aroused 
the Highlanders and 
took up arms for 
James. At Killie- 
crankie, on July 27, 
1689, his followers, 
armed with sword 
and shield, won a 
dashing victory over 
the soldiers of the 
new government, who 
were armed with the 
new-fangled bayonet 
just introduced from 
France. But the brilliant victory availed little, for Claver- 
house was slain in the battle, and without him at their head the 
clans were unable to hold together. In 1691 William bought 
their allegiance with gifts of money and promises of am- 
nesty.^ 

307. Uprising in Ireland : Battle of the Boyne. — When William 
became king of England, the greater part of Ireland was in 
the hands of Roman Catholics, and the nation, loyal to James, 




William III. 
From a miniature by Netscher in 
the Welbeck Abbey Collection. 



1 William's success was marred by the slaughter of the MacDonalds of Glencoe 
(1692) at the instigation of their rivals the Campbells, who had won favor 
with William. Special report : The Massacre of Glencoe. 



312 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [1691 

sprang to arms in order to throw off the burden of English 
Protestantism. In March, 1689, James II arrived from France 
with aid furnished by Louis XIV, and began the siege of 
Londonderry and Enniskillen, where the Protestants had 
gathered. The fight was to the death; already the Irish 
parliament, wholly under the control of Roman Catholics, had 
declared for the independence of Ireland, confiscated the lands 
of the English, and passed an act of attainder against two 
thousand English and Scottish Protestants. The siege of 
Londonderry is a famous event in history. For one hundred 
and five days the heroic Scots-Irish inhabitants held out, until 
at last a fleet sent by William in August, 1689, saved the 
day, and prevented northern Ireland from falling into the 
possession of the Roman Catholics. 

William himself now came over, and met the forces of 
James at the river Boyne, in Leinster, north of Dublin. 
There James and his French and Irish allies were hopelessly 
defeated. The battle of the Boyne (July 1, 1690) destroyed the 
last hope of the Stuart king, and he fled to France. The flight 
of James left the Irish face to face with the struggle for their 
own independence, and for four months they fought like 
heroes. But William was too able a general for them to resist 
successfully. Cork in the south, Athlone in the west, and 
finally, after two sieges. Limerick in the southwest, were 
taken, and the whole of Ireland passed under English and 
Protestant control. 

With the peace of Limerick (October, 1691), the war was 
ended. Ten thousand Irish soldiers were allowed to migrate 
to France; protection was promised for the remaining Irish 
Catholics, but this promise was not kept, and from 1690 to 1778 
a Roman Catholic in Ireland was treated like an outlaw. The 
battle of the Boyne and the capture of Limerick were of great 
importance to William, for they saved the day for him not 
only in Ireland, but also in England and France. 

308. War with France : Victory of La Hogue, — Before 
William undertook the subjugation of Ireland, he had declared 



1697] WAR WITH FRANCE. 313 

war against France, and had sent troops to cooperate with his 
Continental allies. Louis's great object was to strike a quick 
and decisive blow, in order to force upon the allies a humiliat- 
ing peace, and he seemed to have gained his end when the 
French army in the Netherlands and the French fleet in the 
Channel won victories over the English on the same day 
(June 30, 1690). 

For William the moment was a critical one. His position 
was insecure in England, Tories like Marlborough and 
Admiral Eussell were already in correspondence with James, 
The Jacobites,^ a party favorable to the Stuarts, were forming, 
ready to welcome the Stuarts back to England should Louis 
and James be victorious. But the victory of the Boyne 
changed the situation. The Jacobites lost ground ; the victory 
gave new prestige to the government of William and Mary ; 
and when William returned from Ireland after the peace of 
Limerick, he was greeted by the nation with expressions of 
loyalty and devotion. He disgraced Marlborough by depriving 
him of all his offices in 1691, but left B,ussell in command of 
the fleet. For this expression of confidence he received a 
speedy reward. While he himself was in Flanders losing 
ground against the French, Eussell, on May 19, 1692, won the 
sea fight of La Hogue, which was on the sea what the battle of 
the Boyne had been on the land. This victory of the English 
fleet was not only the first great sea victory in the maritime 
struggle between England and France, but it was the first of 
that series of naval victories which made England eventually 
mistress of the seas. 

For five years the war dragged on. Finally, Louis acknowl- 
edged that he could not succeed, and in 1697 signea the 
treaty of Rysioick, by which he recognized William as king 
of England and Anne as William's successor, thus yielding 
one of the chief points for which the war had been under- 
taken. 

J ~" 

iThe name Jacobite comes from the word Jacobus (Latin for James). 



314 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. 

309. Government of William III. — William was no figure- 
head. He was at the same time king, prime minister, minister 
of foreign affairs, and commander-in-chief of the army. He 
presided at the meetings of his chief advisers, made appoint- 
ments, and transacted a great deal of business, without asking 
the opinion of any one. His chief officers of state and heads 
of great departments formed a sort of advisory council, later 
to be known as the Cabinet. These ministers were appointed 
by the king, but were of no one party and in no way repre- 
sented the majority in parliament. Their position was a 
difficult one, for many of them tried to serve two masters, 
king and parliament, at the same time. 

In parliament the House of Commons was inferior, both in 
dignity and in importance to the House of Lords. An am- 
bitious commoner always hoped eventually to become a, peer. 
The commoners had no great leaders and but little party 
organization, though the Whigs were in the habit of meeting 
beforehand to consider important matters. But there was no 
system and no party unity, and the wits of the time — Defoe, 
Swift, Dry den, and others — made endless sport of the way in 
which parliamentary affairs were conducted. 

But parliament succeeded in passing a number of exceed- 
ingly important measures. The Convention, declaring itself a 
lawful parliament, passed the Mutiny Act, which gave parlia- 
ment the control of the army ; the Toleration Act, which 
legally recognized the JSTon-conformist churches, as well as 
the church of England; and the Bill of Bights, which em- 
bodied in the form of law the principal provisions of the 
Declaration of Eight. The same parliament in 1689 settled 
upon the king for the use of the crown a fixed sum, known as 
the civil list, thus separating for the first time the private ex- 
penses of the king from the public expenses of the nation. At 
the same time it made a definite appropriation for government, 
at first for four years, afterward for only one year, thus com- 
pelling the king to summon parliament annually. 

By neglecting to renew an old censorship act of 1662, it 



1688] ENGLAND'S WEALTH. 315 

made possible freedom of the press; and thenceforth news- 
papers and pamphlets were of great influence politically. 
In 1694 the second Whig parliament passed a Triennial Bill, 
requiring the king to issue summons for the election of a new 
parliament every three years; and in 1696 the third Whig 
parliament reformed the procedure in trials for high treason 
and made it more just and humane. Lastly, the Tory parlia- 
ment of 1701 passed the Act of Settlement, which not only 
settled the succession upon the Hanoverians, but also placed 
definite limitations upon the power of the king. Each of 
these acts marked a great constitutional advance in the direc- 
tion of a more settled government. 

310. England's Wealth. — At the same time and of equal 
importance with the constitutional changes were the changes 
taking place in the financial condition of England. Though 
William was one of the ablest generals in Europe, he could 
have done but little had not England provided him liberally 
with men, ships, and the munitions of war; and all these 
things cost money. 

By the revolution of 1688, the financial condition prevailing 
under the Tudors and Stuarts was brought to an end. Thence- 
forth no king was compelled to raise money illegally or to re- 
ceive a pension from a king of France on the ground that par- 
liament did not provide enough money to run the government. 
Parliament gained control of the public purse, managed the 
funds, and was consequently obliged to see that the supplies 
granted were duly raised by taxation. In taking these powers 
to itself, parliament undoubtedly acted as a check upon the 
king ; but it also relieved him of a great burden. The finances 
of England thenceforth stood on a new footing. 

Money was raised in four *ways : by customs duties, excise 
duties, stamp duties, and a tax on land and personal property. 
Customs duties were import duties on sugar, salt, tea, coffee, 
tobacco, and wines brought into the country, and export duties 
on English manufactured goods, such as woollen cloth, sent out 
of the country. Export duties were, however, eventually abol- 



316 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [1698 

ished. The excise was a tax on articles of consumption 
produced in England, such as malt, glass, bricks, soap, 
candles, and paper. Afterward the term excise, which had 
a hateful sound to the English people, included licenses to 
trade and to sell liquors, and taxes on luxuries, such as car- 
riages, horses, and cards. Stamp duties were duties from 
stamps on legal documents and newspapers. The tax on land 
took the place of the old tenths and fifteenths and of the sub- 
sidies levied by the Tudors, but it early ceased to be levied and 
to the present day land in England has not been specially taxed. 

311. The National Debt: the Bank of England. — Although 
the amounts thus raised were large, they were insufficient for 
the wars, and it became necessary to add to them by means of 
loans. Formerly goldsmiths and private individuals had made 
such loans, but without any certainty that they would receive 
the principal or even the interest. In 1692 parliament author- 
ized the borrowing of £1,000,000, and the government asked 
for the money from any one who would lend it, promising to 
pay the interest regularly. Thus began the national debt of 
England. In 1694, when William was in great and immediate 
need of funds to continue the war, and a general loan was not 
thought expedient, a new device was tried. 

Parliament said that those who would subscribe £1,200,000, 
the amount desired, might form a company and do private 
business. The formation of this company was the beginning 
of the Bank of England. Hitherto only private banks existed, 
such as those of the goldsmiths; but now the government 
authorized the establishment of a public bank, which received 
deposits from private individuals, and when necessary loaned 
these deposits to the government. These loans became a part 
of the national debt. The founding of the Bank of England 
introduced a new system of financiering, by encouraging the 
use of paper money and the saving of funds. The financial 
situation was still further improved by an act which author- 
ized the recoining of the money of England (January, 1696). 
New coins were given in exchange for the old clipped and 



1702] ACCESSION OF ANNE. 317 

worn coins, and the latter were no longer allowed to circulate. 
Thus a sound currency system was established. 

The introduction of credit and capital and a sound currency 
system made possible a great extension of business and stimu- 
lated enterprise, so that the moneyed class now came over 
loyally to the support of William's government. 

312. Growth of Industry. — These opportunities to extend 
business and accumulate money were coincident with a new 
era in manufactures and commerce. Refugees from Holland 
and France had already begun to introduce new industries into 
England. Woollen manufactures had prevailed hitherto, but 
now silk, linen, and cotton began to be worked up, and scores 
of small articles, like combs, buttons, jewelry, and baskets 
were made. Manufacturing increased twenty fold. Swifter 
and better methods were employed, though production was 
on a small scale and the processes were still crude. 

At this time parliament began to assume control also in 
matters of commerce. Up to this time private companies, in- 
corporated by the crown, had been the leading agents in pro- 
moting trade and colonization. The great desire of all was to 
find new markets and to hold them for England, to destroy 
such commercial rivals as Holland and France, and to build up 
colonies that would serve as a source of strength to the mother 
country. Parliament passed a fourth Navigation Act in 1696 
(p. 298), which aimed to make the old acts more effective. In 
the same year it established for the lirst time a permanent 
board of trade and plantations, to look after commerce and the 
colonies, and with the exception of the East India Company, 
it refused to charter any more joint-stock companies, with a 
monopoly of trade and of territory. 

313. Accession of Anne. — William died on February 20, 1702, 
with his great work only in part completed. Mary having died 
before William (1694), Anne, Mary's sister, succeeded to the 
throne, according to the Act of Settlement, and entered on a 
reign of twelve years. She was a good woman, of quiet habits 
and simple tastes, loyal to her friends and to the church. 



318 



EXPANSION OF ENGLAND, 



[1707 



Her husband, Prince George of Denmark, was of little conse- 
quence, either as a man or as an adviser of the queen. Anne 

cannot be said to have 
had any fixed politi- 
cal principles. Her 
likes and dislikes 
were personal, and if 
she favored the 
Tories, it was because 
she preferred them as 
individuals and be- 
cause they supported 
the church, which was 
the one real object 
which the queen had 
at heart. Anne en- 
joyed the. respect 
which was due her as 
queen, and she in- 
sisted on exercising 
all the powers of roy- 
alty, as far as she 
could. She appointed 
her own ministers and 
dismissed them if they did not uphold her interests or the 
interests of those she cared for. She received foreign am- 
bassadors and dictated despatches, and for the last time in 
English history she used the royal veto (1707). But weak of 
will, she came under the influence of others, of whom the duke 
of Marlborough and his wife were the most conspicuous. The 
duke of Marlborough, as a private person, was greedy and 
unscrupulous, with an eye always to the main chance, but he 
was the greatest general of his age and saw with unmistak- 
able clearness the necessity of continuing the war policy. In 
spite of his moral defects — and they were many — Marl- 
borough was the true successor of William III as far as foreign 




Queen Anne. 
From an enamel miniature by Charles Boit. 



1700] THE QUESTION OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION. 319 



affairs were concerned, and was destined to complete what 
William had begun — the humiliation of France and the dis- 
comfiture of Louis XIV. 

314. The Question of the Spanish Succession. — The chief 
cause of the war was the attempt of Louis XIV to place his 
grandson on the 
throne of Spain. A 
century after the 
death of Philip II, 
Spain had become an 
object of strife among 
the great powers of 
Europe. She had no 
army, no money, and 
no credit. The child- 
lessness of her king, 
Charles II (1665- 
1700), made the ques- 
tion of succession to 
her throne one of the 
most intricate and 
difficult problems 
that Europe was ever 
called upon to solve. 

Louis XIV had 
realized that the 
powers of Europe 
would not allow him 

to annex Spain, and as far back as 1668 he had sought to 
arrange a partition of the territory with the emperor. In 
1698 the policy of partition was revived, but this time Eng- 
land and Holland, and not the emperor, joined Louis XIV 
in an agreement regarding the eventual disposition of Spain. 
Two partition treaties were signed, and all seemed to be hap- 
pily arranged, when suddenly Charles II died (1700). To the 
surprise of every one, his will named the grandson of Louis 




Duke of Marlborough. 
From an engraving by Peter van Gunst. 



320 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [1714 

XIV, Philip of Anjou, as his heir. Louis, throwing the par- 
tition treaties to the winds, accepted the legacy, and allowed 
Philip to enter on the inheritance. The next year he recog- 
nized the son of James II as the rightful heir to the English 
throne, thus violating the terms of the treaty of Ryswick. 
This double treachery filled the English people with a desire 
to punish the autocratic king of France. 

315. Marlborough's Victories. — War was formally declared 
in May, 1701, and the struggle continued for twelve years. It 
was fought out in Italy, Bavaria, Spain, the Netherlands, 
America (as Queen Anne's War), and on the sea. Marlborough 
began his campaign in Flanders, while his chief ally, Eugene 
of Savoy, fought in upper Italy, and the English navy watched 
for opportunities in the West Indies and the Mediterranean. 
The first great victory of the war was won by Marlborough 
and Prince Eugene over the French and Bavarians at Blenheim 
in 1704. In the same year Sir George Eooke captured Gibral- 
tar and held it against every, attempt of the French to recover 
it. In 1706 Marlborough won the great battle of RamilUes, 
which saved the Spanish Netherlands from the French, just as 
the victory of Blenheim had saved Vienna. In 1706 Louis was 
willing to treat for peace; but the allies rejected his overtures 
and continued the war. In 1708 they won the battle of Oucle- 
narde in Flanders, and in 1709 the last army that France 
could raise was sent to the front, only to be beaten after a 
brave fight, in the bloody battle of Malplaquet (1709). 

316. Fall of Marlborough and the Whigs : Treaty of Utrecht. — 
At this juncture a change of party control vn England saved 
France. Marlborough, who had gone into the war a Tory, 
found it expedient to attach himself to the party of the Whigs, 
who supported the war policy. By 1708 the ministry had be- 
come wholly Whig, greatly to the dissatisfaction of Queen 
Anne, who was beginning to tire of the influence of the Marl- 
boroughs. The Whigs became exceedingly unpopular, espe- 
cially after prosecuting Dr. Saeheverell for preaching a Tory 
sermon (1710). Thereupon the queen dismissed the Whigs, 



1707] UNION WITH SCOTLAND. 821 

restored the Tories to power, rid herself of the duchess of 
Marlborough, and two years later recalled Marlborough him- 
self from the command (1712). 

Marlborough's fall meant the end of the war. The Tories 
hurried the peace negotiations, and in 1713 the treaty of 
Utrecht was signed. England neglected the interests of her 
allies and gained for herself the greatest advantages from the 
treaty. Philip (the grandson of Louis) was recognized as king 
of Spain, and the Indies (South America) were confirmed as 
Spanish possessions. To check the growth of France, Holland 
was given control of the fortresses on her frontier, Prussia 
received territory on the Rhine, and Savoy an extension of 
land in northwestern Italy. From Spain, England received 
Minorca and Gibraltar in the Mediterranean; from France, 
Nova Scotia, all claims to Hudson Bay territory, and New- 
foundland, though the French, in resigning their territorial 
claims in Newfoundland, retained the right to catch fish and 
to dry them on certain portions of the coast. Spain granted 
to the South Sea Company the exclusive right of import- 
ing a certain number of slaves to the Spanish colonies in 
South America for thirty years, and allowed the company to 
send one ship annually with English goods to trade at the 
Spanish fairs in South America. Thus the commercial activity 
of England was widely extended. 

317. Union with Scotland. — While England was gaining 
important commercial advantages and extending her empire 
abroad, she was occupied at home in consolidating her king- 
dom. Cromwell had given representation in the English par- 
liament to both the Scots and the Irish; but Charles II had 
separated the three kingdoms, granting each a parliament of 
its own, with a common king, the king of England. Since 
that time Scotland and Ireland had been governed by commis- 
sioners, and in many ways had been treated as foreign coun- 
tries. The navigation act had forbidden the English colonies 
to trade with Scotland and Ireland, except through England, 
and Scottish merchants and manufacturers had suffered greatly 



322 



EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. 



[1707 



from this restriction of their market. The Scots saw how im- 
possible it would be for them to build up a trade except by 
union with England. The English, on their side, were afraid 
that on the death of Queen Anne, Scotland would break away 
from England entirely and form an independent kingdom. So, 
after a year's deliberation, both countries agreed upon union. 

The Act of Union was adopted in 1707. Among the inde- 
pendent Scots it aroused an intense opposition that only time 





Ckoss of St. Andrew. Ckoss of St. George. 
Scotland. England. 



A white cross on a 
blue field. 



A red cross on a 
white field. 



The "Union Jack." 
Great Britain. 

The two crosses 
combined. 



Upon the accession of James I, he issued a proclamation ordering his 
subjects to use a flag with the two crosses "joined together accord- 
ing to a form made by our heralds." It is said to have received the 
name "Union Jack" because the king signed his name in French, 
Jacques. In 1801, on the legislative union with Ireland, the Cross 
of St. Patrick, red upon a white field, was added to the union flag. 



could eradicate, but in the end it was to be the making of the 
Scottish nation and kingdom. By this act the two kingdoms 
became one state, with one parliament, one debt, one system of 
taxation, one body of commercial and trading privileges, and 
one flag, the Union Jack. Only in church and law and justice 
did differences exist. Scotland retained Presbyterianism as 
the state religion, and administered law and justice in her 
own way. Thenceforward England, Wales, and Scotland were 
known as Great Britain. 

Ireland, as before, was denied all commercial advantages. 
She was heavily taxed and the growth of her industries delib- 
erately retarded in order to benefit Scotland and the colonies. 



1714] 



THE HANOVERIAN SUCCESSION, 



323 



318. The Hanoverian Succession. — In 1714 the sickness of 
Queen Anne brought up the question of the succession to the 
throne. According to 
the Act of Settle- 
ment, the heir to the 
throne was the aged 
Sophia, electress of 
Hanover and grand- 
daughter of James I, 
but by her death, in 
1714, the title passed 
to her son George, a 
phlegmatic and un- 
interesting German, 
fifty-four years old. 
That he had a claim 
to the British throne 
at all was in itself an 
extraordinary fact. 
He was not the near- 
est heir, nor was he an 
elected king. The 
people had not chosen 
him, and, had they 
been asked, would 
probably have rejected him. The Act of Settlement had been 
passed by the House of Commons in a moment of intense ex- 
citement, the members fearing that Louis XIV would recog- 
nize the son of James II as heir to the English throne, as he did, 
in fact, three months later. The more men thought about the ar- 
rangement, the less they liked it, and from 1702 to 1714 it stead- 
ily lost favor. After the danger from France had been removed, 
the opposition to the Hanoverian succession began to increase. 

This opposition was backed by the Tories, who now, under 
their leader, Bolingbroke, a brilliant orator but erratic states- 
man, began a campaign for the restoration of the Stuarts. But 




Geoegb I. 

From a miniature by Bernard Lens 
in the Montam House Collection. 



324 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [1720 

Bolingbroke's plan was checked by the honorable refusal of 
James III, the Pretender, to change his religion from Ecman 
Catholic to Anglican. This decision divided the Tories, many 
of whom were unwilling to see a Eoman Catholic on the throne. 
Therefore, when on August 1, 1714, Queen Anne died very un- 
expectedly, the Whig friends of the Hanoverians were able to 
declare George king. On September 18 he landed in England, 
and the reign of the House of Hanover began. 

319. The Uprisings of 1715. — The succession of George I 
was a victory for the Whigs. In the mind of the new king, the 
Tories were Jacobites (supporters of the Pretender James), and 
with them he would have nothing to do. He selected his first 
ministers from among the Whigs, who, thus restored to power, 
remained in absolute control of the government for forty years. 
All the offices of importance were held by members of a few 
leading Whig families, who during the later part of the period 
disputed and quarrelled and bargained among themselves for 
lucrative positions which gave social and political prestige and 
opportunities for increasing private fortunes. This victory for 
the Whigs, which was followed by the impeachment of Boling- 
broke and other extreme measures, led to many Jacobite riots 
in 1715. 

But even more serious than the Jacobite riots in England was 
the Jacobite movement in Scotland, known as Mar's Uprising. 
A general insurrection in England and Scotland had been 
planned by Bolingbroke; but unfortunately for the success of 
the undertaking, the Pretender, headstrong and impatient, or- 
dered the earl of Mar to act in Scotland before the English 
Jacobites were ready. Mar was defeated at Sheriffmuir (No- 
vember 13, 1715) ; and, though James himself went to Scotland 
to encourage his supporters, the whole movement proved a 
failure, and Mar and the Pretender escaped to France. 

320. The Cabinet and the House of Commons. — By 1720 the 
Whigs were triumphant, the Tories discredited, and the house 
of Hanover was firmly established on the throne. George I 
was a very different man from William III. He made no 



1721-1742] MINISTRY OF WALPOLE. 325 

attempt to be a personal ruler, and left everything to his 
ministers. He was German, and, speaking no English, he 
could not talk to either ministers or people. He leaned entirely 
on the Whigs, and refused to have a Tory in his ministry. 
Consequently, party government in a new sense began to pre- 
vail, and the cabinet became more and more a governing 
body of the kingdom. George appointed his own ministers, 
but left them to manage affairs more or less as they pleased. 
Thus the power of the cabinet steadily increased and the power 
of the crown steadily declined. 

At the same time an important change took place in the 
House of Commons. Under George I it gained in power and im- 
portance, until it was of more dignity and consequence than the 
House of Lords. Three causes may be assigned to this change. 

(1) Since the Triennial Act of 1694 a new parliament had to be 
elected every three years ; but in 1716 the Whigs, fearing to lose 
the election in case parliament were dissolved, passed the Sep- 
tennial Act, which continued their session and that of succeed- 
ing parliaments for seven years. This law, which prevailed 
till 1911, had the effect of dignifying the House of Commons. 

(2) As government became more expensive, the House of 
Commons, which controlled the purse, became more and more 
influential. It disbursed only £2,300,000 in 1699, but in 1743 
the amount had increased to £10,000,000. The national debt 
had risen to £52,000,000 in 1714, and to £55,000,000 in 1721. 
Financial questions touching economy and expenditure became 
leading issues in the eighteenth century ; and the House of 
Commons was the storm centre of debate. 

(3) The policy of Walpole, the greatest Whig minister of 
this time, had much to do with making the House of Commons 
more powerful than the House of Lords. During his entire 
ministry of twenty-one years Walpole remained a commoner, 
and his seat of activity was the House of Commons. 

321. Ministry of Walpole (1721-1742). — Walpole's long 
ministry forms an epoch by itself in English history. It was 
a period of peace, economy, and financial reform. It was not a 



326 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [1721 

time of progress in politics or legislation, but it was marked by 
great progress in the wealth, and comfort of the English people. 

Walpole was a financier rather than a statesman; his age 
was characterized by bribery and corruption, coarseness in 
manners, and religious and moral stagnation. Drunkenness, 
lawlessness, and inhumanity prevailed. Society lived for 
pleasure and for personal gain. But trade and commerce in- 
creased, and new towns in the north and west grew in size and 
wealth ; and these gains in wealth and resource were to stand 
Great Britain in good stead in the exciting years that followed. 

During his ministry Walpole had three purposes: first, to 
unite the landowning and moneyed classes in support of the 
House of Hanover, and so make secure the throne of the 
Georges, whom he served ; second, to develop trade and indus- 
trial activity at home by reducing taxation and cutting, down 
the national debt ; and third, to strengthen the navy and to 
encourage commerce with the colonies abroad, on the principle 
that the greater the prosperity of the colonies, the greater 
would be their demand for English goods. 

First he restored confidence in the nation's credit, which had 
suffered in a financial panic known as the South Sea Bubble.^ 
Then he inaugurated a reform of the whole tariff system, partly 
to check smuggling and adulteration, and partly to encourage 
manufacturing at home and to relieve the poor. In 1721 he re- 
moved export duties from one hundred and six articles of 
British manufacture, and import duties from thirty-eight 
articles of raw material ; and he further reduced the duties on 
many of the necessaries of life. 

His colonial policy was even more noteworthy. Colonies at 
this time were generally considered as sources of supply ; their 
trade was restricted by navigation acts and manufacturing in 
them was prohibited. Walpole was rather inclined to neglect 
the colonies and to allow them to trade where they pleased. 
His colonial policy opened new markets for colonial products, 

1 Special report on the South Sea Bubble. 



1739] TOKY OPPOSITION: WAE WITH SPAIN. 327 

which heretofore had been sent only to England, and the Amer- 
ican colonies entered upon a period of unprecedented growth 
and prosperity. 

While Walpole favored the merchants and the colonists, he 
also desired to aid the landed gentry. Considering the land 
tax ruinous and unfairly levied, by 1731 he succeeded in re- 
ducing it from four shillings to one shilling on the pound. In 
order to keep the tax at this low rate, and at the same time to 
make up the loss in revenue, he was obliged to adopt new 
methods of taxation. Therefore, in 1733 he introduced his 
Excise Bill, in which he proposed to change certain customs 
duties into excise duties. Certain products, such as tobacco, in- 
stead of paying " customs duties " at the wharves, were admitted 
duty free and an excise duty paid within the country when the 
products were sold. The Excise Bill was wholly admirable 
from a financial point of view, because it would have checked 
smuggling, made the collecting of duties easier and simpler, 
would have been a step in the direction of free trade, and 
would have lightened the burden of the land tax, but it bore 
the hated name of "excise" and a fury of opposition was 
raised in the country. Walpole bent before the storm. Though 
a majority in parliament could have been obtained for the 
measure, he decided to push it no further. For almost the 
first time in English history, public opinion won a victory over 
a parliamentary majority. 

Though Walpole was chiefly influential in matters of trade 
and finance, he contributed indirectly to the shaping of the 
constitution not by passing laws, but by the practical work of 
conducting the government. He organized his followers in the 
House of Commons and gave shape to party government ; he trans- 
formed the old group of ministers into a working cabinet and 
made himself the supreme ministerial head of the government. 

322. Tory Opposition: "War with Spain (1739). — Against 
Walpole's strong position the Tory opposition hurled itself in 
vain. George I died, and George II succeeded to the throne 
(1727) ; but Walpole continued in office. Though the failure 



328 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [1742 

of the Excise Bill did not weaken Ms position, he was finally 
overthrown because he was opposed to a war with Spain, which 
grew out of the commercial rivalry between Spain and England. 

The commercial privileges given to England by Spain in the 
treaty of Utrecht (1713) had become very important to British 
merchants and had led to a gradual and illegal extension of 
British trade in South American ports. The "one ship a year" 
allowed by the treaty (p. 321) had become a small flotilla, and 
smuggling was carried on unblushingly. This exasperated the 
Spanish officials, who, resenting this abuse, attempted to retal- 
iate. Tales of horrible atrocities, of Englishmen confined in 
Spanish dungeons and driven to labor in Spanish chain-gangs, 
were brought back to England. One Captain Jenkins appeared 
before the bar of the House with an ear done up in cotton- 
wool and told how it had been torn off by a brutal Spanish 
captain. Some said that the ear was still there ; others that 
Jenkins had lost it in the pillory. England could. endure no 
more, and, burning with indignation, — hardly righteous, 
since Spain had a just grievance, — demanded redress. Con- 
trary to Walpole's wishes and efforts, war was declared in 
1739. The " War of Jenkins's Ear," as it was called, ended in 
a failure, which was charged against Walpole. The opposition, 
taking advantage of Walpole's unpopularity, made every effort 
to overthrow him. Walpole's majority in parliament grew 
steadily smaller until, in 1741, it amounted to but one vote. 
So, in February, 1742, Walpole resigned and his great ministry 
came to an end. 

323. Importance of Walpole's Ministry. — But Walpole's work 
was accomplished. The Hanoverian dynasty was firmly es- 
tablished. G-reat Britain was commercially prosperous and 
consequently contented. Men no longer worried about the 
Act of Settlement ; the mass of the people wanted stable gov- 
ernment, and with this guaranteed, cared little whether the 
king was a George or a James, a Hanoverian or a Stuart. 
The new importance of parliament overshadowed the doctrine 
of divine right, and very few were prepared to risk their lives 



1748J 



WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION. 



S29 



and their property for the sake of a pretender whose claims to 
the throne rested on birth only. The quarrels of Continental 
dynasties or the de- 
mands of a Jacobite 
pretender were now 
of less importance to 
most Englishmen 
than trade, financial 
security, and per- 
sonal comfort. 

324. War of the 
Austrian Succession 
(i 740-1 748): King 
George's War in Amer- 
ica. — Great Britain's 
indifference to Con- 
tinental affairs is 
shown by the attitude 
assumed by the Brit- 
ish government in 
the war of the Aus- 
trian Succession. 
The states of Europe 
had acknowledged 
Maria Theresa, 
daughter of the arch- 
duke of Austria, as heir to her father's throne, but upon his 
death in 1740 Prussia, under Frederick the Great, France, 
and other countries attacked Austria, hoping to gain territory 
for themselves. King George II as elector of Hanover was 
niuch concerned in the war and made an alliance with Austria 
against France. But the English felt little enthusiasm for 
the war and continued it only because of the hostile attitude 
of France, till in 1748 the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was 
signed, which restored to each contestant all that had been lost 
during the war. During the struggle England's chief interest 




Robert Walpole. 
From an engraving by H. Robinson, after 
a painting by C. Jervas in tlie Walpole 
Collection. 



330 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [1746 

had been in the navy, which had won two victories over the 
French fleet, and in the American colonists, who had captured 
Louisburg in 1745. 

325. The Young Pretender. — The Jacobites took advantage of 
the war to make another and last attempt to obtain possession 
of the English throne. The Young Pretender, Charles Ed- 
ward, son of the Old Pretender, James, determined to test 
once more the loyalty of the Highlanders. Setting out with 
a few followers, in a single vessel, he landed in western 
Scotland, gained control of the country by winning the battle 
of Prestonpans, and on July 25, 1745, crossed the frontier 
and advanced into England. 

His march to Derby aroused great apprehension in London, 
but the English Jacobites failed to support the prince, and, 
finally, Charles Edward was forced to retreat. Marching 
despondently back to Scotland, he was defeated at Culloden 
on April 16, 1746, by a superior army under the duke of 
Cumberland. After many romantic adventures he made his 
way to France, where he euded, in 1788, his inglorious career, 
just a century after his grandfather had been banished from 
the throne. 

326. England's New Interests. — England's half-hearted in- 
terest in the war of the Austrian Succession and her repudia- 
tion of the Stuarts were indicative of a new era that had been 
ushered in by the peace policy of Walpole. Questions larger 
than the claims of a pretender were arousing the British 
people to a new activity in the worlds beyond the seas, where 
lay the frontier posts of British empire. At home a religious 
revival was already stirring the people to the depths, and was 
awakening a new spirit in the English democracy. The in- 
difference and scepticism of the preceding half century were 
to give way to an unprecedented outburst of military enthu- 
siasm and religious fervor. 

327. Colonial Rivalry between England and France. — England 
and France were already rivals for the great regions in the 
east and the west, in India and in America. The English 



1756-1763] THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 33\ 

had established themselves in Madras in 1639, at Bombay in 
1661, and at Calcutta in ' 1698 ; but during the war of the 
Austrian Succession (1740-1748) the French under Dupleix 
had won a number of victories and had become the real 
masters of the region in southwestern India known as the 
Carnatic. It was a bitter moment for Dupleix when the 
treaty of Aix-larChapelle compelled him to return to England 
what he had so bravely won. 

At the same time the French and British were also fighting 
for supremacy in America. In 1749 the Ohio Company had 
been formed for the purpose of founding an English colony 
in the Ohio valley, already guarded by French forts. For 
a century there had been occasional conflicts between the 
French and the English along the northern frontiers ; but now 
the struggle for the first time became serious in the Ohio 
valley. The French, step by step, had advanced, their out- 
posts in the Mississippi valley and were hemming in the 
English colonists on the west. In 1754 a Virginian colonel, 
George Washington, at the head of a small colonial army, 
attacked a body of French troops near Fort Duquesne (Pitts- 
burgh) ; but the English colonists did not support him, and he 
was obliged to withdraw. The British claimed that the 
French had no right to the Ohio valley; while Duquesne, 
governor of Canada, sent word to the governors of New York 
and Pennsylvania that he would permit no settlements other 
than French in that region. The French under Duquesne, 
and afterwards under Montcalm, were able to act quickly and 
effectively ; but the English colonies, acting individually, were 
very slow and the home government was inefficient and weak. 
The British expedition organized under General Braddock 
suffered an overwhelming defeat in 1755, and it began to look 
as if the French would remain masters in the Ohio valley, and 
would successfully connect their Canadian possessions with 
those on the Gulf of Mexico. 

328. The Seven Years' War (1756-1763) : French and Indian 
War in America. — The war in America broke out before the 



332 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [1757 

formal declaration was made in Europe. Knowing that war 
was inevitable, France and England hastened to find allies to 
aid them in the struggle. England formed an alliance with 
Prussia, which was rapidly rising into power under Frederick 
the Great, and France signed a treaty with Austria. These 
treaties reversed the old British and French policies, as Eng- 
land and Austria had stood together for generations past, but 
British statesmen recognized that the growing commercial in- 
terests of England demanded friendship with the rising German 
state of Prussia. 

329. First Period of the War : British Reverses. — Frederick 
the Great of Prussia, subsidized by Great Britain, began the 
attack. After being defeated by the Austrians and by the 
Russians, Frederick won a great victory over the French at 
E-ossbach near Leipzig (1757), showing himself to be one of 
the greatest generals in Europe. England's share in the war 
was without glory. The duke of Cumberland was disgrace- 
fully defeated in Hanover, and an expedition sent by sea 
against Rochefort on the French coast ended in failure. In 
America, Lord Loudoun, attempting to take Louisburg, which 
had been returned to France by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 
proved utterly incompetent and accomplished nothing. Men 
began to see that the trouble lay not with the troops, but v/ith 
the commanders ; that favoritism and rank rather than military 
experience had been considered in the selection of generals. 

330. WiUiam Pitt. — In 1757 so great indignation was aroused 
against the administration, that in November of that year a 
wave of popular feeling carried William Pitt into the ministry, 
as a principal secretary of state and the actual head of the 
ministry. Pitt became the leading minister in spite of king, 
lords, and commons, because he was the only minister of his day 
in whom the people had absolute confidence. Pitt's strength 
lay in his enthusiasm and incorruptibility. He was arrogant, 
affected, impractical, and careless; but he was filled with 
patriotic fervor strikingly unlike the indifference, distrust, 
and helplessness of those who had preceded him. In an age of 



CHINESE 




VMALAB^'a^J.iCarieaj "^ INDIA 

TnAVANcll^'J^'' ■'"""'" aftepthe 
~^4r\ Seven Years' War, 

'' I J CEYLON 



/ 2\r J9 / 4 A'^ 



OCEAN 



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^^> J\ In 1850. 

) JCEYLON 

INDIA N ^^0 C E A N 



RUSSIAN 
EMPIRE 



Meeting point of British, 
*3usi in and Chinese Empires. 
^''' S:J%a««i» TURKESTAN 

^^~*^^^ CHINESE EMPIRE 

j:^t!?^ /KASHMifTI^ TIBET 

If >#^* 
■~^r\-~L'.^ TONQUIN 

^, (FRENCH) 

.^ U R M A'"^ 
ktta 




1767-1759] SECOND PERIOD : BRITISH SUCCESSES. 



333 



corruption, selfistness, and inefficiency he was able and honest. 

He was free from class prejudice and unusually keen in his 

judgment of men — a true leader in whom the middle class, 

the moneyed class of 

the nation, could 

have confidence. He 

taught the people to 

be hopeful, btave, 

and self-reliant, and 

to svibordinate their 

individual interests 

to the interests of the 

country at large. 

331. Second Period: 
A Change for the Bet- 
ter. — Pitt's influ- 
ence was felt immedi- 
ately and the English 
were successful in 
(1) Europe, (2) India, 
and (3) America. 

(1) A new treaty 
was made with Prus- 
sia, whereby a sub- 
sidy of £670,000 was 
to be paid to Prussia 
annually, for the purpose, as Pitt said, of winning America in 
Germany, by aiding Prussia to defeat France on the Continent. 

(2) In India events of even greater importance were taking 
place. In 1743 Robert Clive, a young Englishman, had been 
sent to Madras, where, for three years, his chief work had 
been the casting up of accounts, in the employ of the East 
India Company. In 1751 a war broke out between native 
princes, involving both French and English in India. In 
several battles Clive defeated the French general, Dupleix, 
who, in 1752, was called to France in disgrace. In 1754, while 




William Pitt, the Elder. 
From a painting by R. Brompton. 



334 



EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. 



[1?58 



Clive was in England, a native prince of the north seized Cal- 
cutta and thrust the captives into the garrison room of the 

factory there, — fa- 
mous thenceforth as 
the "Black Hole of 
Calcutta," — causing 
the death of a hun- 
dred and twenty-five 
men and women. 
Clive, returning in 

1756, took a speedy 
vengeance on the des- 
pot, and in the battle 
of Plassey, June, 

1757, defeated fifty 
thousand untrained 
native troops and 
won for the British 
the protectorate of 
Bengal. This fa- 
mous event gave to 
the East India Com- 
pany the control of 
northeastern India. 
Eor four years more 

the English continued to win territory, until by 1761 the 
French power in India was permanently broken. The respon- 
sibility for the loss rests not with the French generals, but 
with the scandalously inefl&cient government of Louis XV. 

(3) In America also success attended British arms. The 
campaign of 1755 had ended in the defeat and death of Brad-, 
dock; of three expeditions against Canada, only one — that 
against New Brunswick — had succeeded. But in 1758 a 
change took place. Pitt equipped three expeditions and placed 
them under the command of efficient men. Amherst, who was 
sent against Louisburg, captured the fortress, July 26, 1758, 




Robert, Lord Clive. 

From an engraving by A. T. Mote after the 
original in the Government House, Calcutta. 



1760] SECOND PEKIOD: BRITISH SUCCESSES. 335 

and obtained control of the island of Cape Breton. Fort 
Duquesne was taken the same year. And, finally, Wolfe, 
pushing westward from Louisburg, scaled the heights of the 
Plains of Abraham, before Quebec, and on September 13, 1759, 
won a great victory over the French commander, Montcalm.^ 
The surrender of Quebec followed five days later, and by 1761 
all Canada had fallen into the hands of the English, leaving 
only New Orleans to the French. 

Thus Pitt's policy, expensive though it was, received full 
vindication. Vast sums of money had been spent to equip 
armies to support the colonies and to subsidize Frederick II, 
yet Great Britain, in the period of commercial prosperity that 
followed, received back ten times what she had spent. 

In 1760 George II died, and was succeeded by his grandson, 
George III. The new king was a young man of twenty-two, 
who was strongly English in sympathies and was thoroughly 
imbued with a determination to rule as well as reign. He was 
resolved that he would not be ruled, as his father and grand- 
father had been, by the autocratic Whig families who had con- 
trolled the government since 1714, but would break down the 
system of cabinet and party government that seemed to be 
limiting the freedom of the king. He proposed to restore the 
royal prerogative, to be his own first minister, to choose his 
other ministers himself, and to be the guide of his own policy. 
As far as the law was concerned he had a perfect right to do 
this ; no statute forbade it ; many statesmen were in sympathy 
with his views regarding government and in the main he had 
the support of the people at large. Cabinet and party control 
was not liked by a great many people in England who looked 
on cabinet government as only a temporary arrangement. 

But George III did not intend to restore the monarchy of 
the Stuarts, or to govern without parliament. It was his in- 
tention to rule with the aid of a party of his own in parlia- 
' ment, one bound to him by flattery, bribery, and sentiments of 

1 Special report : Wolfe and Montcalm and the victory at Quebec. 



336 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. ■ [1763 

loyalty. He saw no reason why he should not break down all 
party opposition to himself ; not a difl&cult task, because parties 
were very much unorganized at that time. Thus there arose 
the new Tories, no longer Jacobites, but Hanoverians, who up- 
held the king in his determination to restore once more the 
royal prerogative. 

332. Fall of Pitt: Bute's Incompetence. — First of all George 
III tried to get rid of the man whose overshadowing influence 
was distinctly an obstacle in his path. In this attempt for- 
tune favored him, for in the year 1761 there was a split in the 
cabinet on the question of war with Spain which Pitt favored, 
and the latter resigned. Lord Bute, royal favorite and leader 
of Pitt's opponents in the cabinet, a man as much hated in 
England as Pitt was beloved, now directed the king's policy. 
In spite of all his efforts to the contrary, Bute was compelled 
to declare war against Spain in 1762; and a brilliant naval 
campaign, for which Pitt had made all the preparations, was 
carried on. Cuba and other islands in the West Indies were 
taken, Manila in the Philippine Islands was occupied; and 
large amounts of Spanish treasure fell into British hands. 
But the incompetent Bute even in the face of these victories 
began to negotiate for peace. He refused longer to pay 
subsidies to Frederick the Great, whom Pitt had aided in 
order to fight France on the Continent, and he seemed ready 
to give up anything if only a peace could be arranged. Fi- 
nally, on February 10, 1763, a treaty of peace was signed at 
Paris. 

333. Peace of Paris. — The terms of this treaty revealed, 
with startling distinctness, the expansion that had taken place, 
since the treaty of Utrecht, in British interests and British 
territory in the world beyond the seas. Great Britain came 
into full control in America : she received Canada, the islands 
of the St. Lawrence, a confirmation of her right to Nova Scotia 
(Acadia), the valley of the Mississippi, except New Orleans, 
and in return for Cuba and Manila, which she gave back to 
Spain, she received Florida. She retained also four islands in 



1791] THE KELIGIOUS REVIVAL: THE WESLEYS. 337 

the West Indies. No less complete was the success in India, 
where the French were allowed by the treaty only a few 
trading stations. The treaty of Paris, though it was deemed 
unsatisfactory by the people of England at the time, marks 
the highest point of colonial power attained by Great Britain 
in the eighteenth century and made her the leading maritime 
state in the world. 

334. The Religious Revival: the Wesleys. — With the 
growth of Great Britain's colonial empire went the gradual 
advance of the capitalist and working classes to a position of 
political importance in the kingdom. The middle class, 
whether represented or not in parliament, were listened to more 
attentively than ever before by those who controlled the gov- 
ernment. But the lower classes, who were without representa- 
tion in any modern sense of the term, had hardly yet begun 
their political career. A great emotional force was, however, 
at work among them. 

Beginning in Walpole's time (1730-1740) a religious revival 
aroused the dull and sodden masses from the hopeless lethargy 
into which they had fallen, and served as a rebuke to the in- 
difference and intolerance of the clergy of the church of Eng- 
land. Starting as a small movement among a few students at 
Oxford, of whom John Wesley, a wonderful preacher and or- 
ganizer, his brother, Charles Wesley, and George Whitefield 
were the leaders, it soon spread to the laboring classes, — arti- 
sans, peasants, and miners. Whitefield preached with tre- 
mendous power to crowds in the open air, appealing to their 
sense of sin, to their fear of the dangers that threatened their 
souls, and to the hope of the salvation that would follow the 
godly life. John Wesley gathered his followers into bands 
and societies, and gave form to that ecclesiastical system 
eventually known as Methodism. 

Wesley refused to separate either himself or his organization 
from the church of England, but his followers, after his death, 
in 1791, broke away from the established church, and became 
a distinct religious body, the Methodists. The Wesley move- 



338 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [1763 

ment is important in the history of religious faith in that it 
quickened the religious life of the other ecclesiastical bodies; 
but of even greater importance, at the time, was its influence 
in stirring the lower classes to a new social and political ac- 
tivity. It marks a turning point in the history of English 
democracy in that it aroused the laborer to a new realization 
of his own individuality and made him a part of a powerful 
organization. 

335. Power of Public Opinion : John Wilkes. — Though public 
opinion was still in its infancy, it had begun to play a part in 
English history. It had compelled Walpole to withdraw his 
excise measure, had forced him into the War of Jenkins's Ear, 
had placed Pitt in the ministry, and, finally, had denounced 
the treaty of Paris. The men who were taking part in the 
great work of winning the Empire were feeling that they ought 
to have some share in governing what they had won, and were 
becoming discontented with the narrow, selfish, and corrupt 
methods of the House of Commons. This body was largely 
composed of men who had bought their seats, and who sold 
their parliamentary votes to the highest bidder ; they refused 
to allow their debates to be printed, and, with an exaggerated 
sense of their own importance, became oversensitive to criti- 
cism, and were only too ready to punish any one who affronted 
their dignity. 

On April 8, 1763, Lord Bute resigned, and Grenville took his 
place as secretary of state. The latter proved less of a tool 
than the king had hoped, but he made a serious mistake in his 
prosecution of John Wilkes. Wilkes was a member of parlia- 
ment, who, though of doubtful morals, had made himself popular 
with the common people by his attacks upon the king and the 
ministers. Wilkes had published in his paper, the North 
Briton, an article criticising the speech which the king had 
made at the prorogation of parliament, April 23, 1763. The 
government issued a general warrant for his arrest, but the 
Lord Chief Justice declared the warrant illegal, and there was 
great rejoicing among the people at large. Then the House of 



1769J POLICY TOWARDS THE AMERICAN COLONIES. 339 

Commons expelled him. Unprotected by his membership in 
parliament, he suffered persecution, imprisonment, and finally 
outlawry. In the eyes of the people the persecution of Wilkes 
by parliament was an attack upon the liberty of the subject 
and the freedom of the press. In 1768 the county of Middlesex 
elected Wilkes as its representative, but the House of Commons 
refused to allow him to take his seat. Three times he was re- 
turned amid an excitement that stirred southern England to its 
depths. Meetings were held in cities and counties, expressing 
want of confidence in parliament, and opposition to the coercive 
policy of the government. In 1769 " Junius '' published his 
scathing indictment of the administration, and his " letters " 
had great popularity.^ 

336. Policy toward the American Colonies. — The most impor- 
tant problem that confronted the British ministry at this time 
was what policy to adopt toward the American colonies. 
Hitherto the government had not paid much attention to the 
colonies as such, for it had been more interested in trade and 
commerce and in the colonies as contributors to England's 
wealth. But for half a century, since the treaty of Utrecht in 
1713, the colonies had made vast strides forward in the man- 
agement of their own commerce and of their own government. 
In fact, in their method of governing themselves they were far 
ahead of the mother country. 

The treaty of 1763 had shown that England was becoming a 
great and world-wide empire. The question inevitably arose 
as to what place the colonies should have in this empire. 
Would it be possible to reconcile the tendency of the colonies 
toward self-government and the management of their own affairs 
with the tendency of Great Britain to establish an empiie in 
which the colonies should hold merely a subordinate place ? 

1 The author of the "letters of Junius " still remains unknown. The gov- 
ernment prosecuted the editor of the paper for publishing the letters, but the 
case was lost. In the end, public opinion won the victory, and in the next 
general election, 1774, when Wilkes was for the fifth time elected, he was 
allowed to take bis seat. 



340 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [1765 

If Great Britain were to hold her empire together, she must 
protect it ; and to do so meant a standing army and an adequate 
revenue. The colonies refused to furnish either money or men, 
and as the national debt of Great Britain had been greatly ex- 
tended by the war with France, it was necessary for the British 
government to raise a revenue, if possible, in America. 

Grenville proposed three measures. First, to renew and 
strengthen the Navigation Acts ; second, to reform the methods 
employed to enforce these acts and so to put an end to smug- 
gling and furnishing supplies to the enemy ; third, to provide 
for the defence of the vast territorial additions to the empire 
by increasing the revenue of the kingdom whereby ships and 
troops might be equipped. In enforcing the second of these 
measures Grenville, though doing what he had a legal right to 
do, was distinctly interfering with colonial trade, since for half 
a century the colonies had been trading to their own profit and 
were becoming independent in commerce as well as in govern- 
ment. They had frequently broken the Navigation Acts and 
during the war had freely trafficked with the French in contra- 
band goods. Grenville's policy was neither illegal nor arbi- 
trary, but it was unwise. The English statesmen in 1763 at- 
tempted to meet a new situation by reviving in part an old 
system that fitted an earlier and different condition of things. 
They did not realize that the colonies would not be content 
with new acts which curtailed their power of managing their 
own affairs to their own profit. 

337. The Stamp Act. — It is not likely that Grenville's efforts 
to enforce the Navigation Acts would have led to revolt because 
these measures affected only the northern colonies at most, and 
probably could not have been permanently applied in any case. 
Much more serious was his proposal to interfere with the right 
of the colonies to tax themselves. He was driven to do this 
because the colonies refused to raise either money or men for 
the protection of the empire in America, but he tried to make 
the tax as light as possible. In 1765 parliament passed the 
Stamp Act, requiring the colonists to put government stamps 



1766] THE TOWNSHEND ACTS. 341 

on all legal documents. The colonists had never doubted the 
right of parliament to regulate trade, but they denied its right 
to levy an internal tax upon them. They claimed that such 
tax should be imposed only by their own assemblies. As the 
tax was to help pay the cost of the war and to supp&rt an army 
for the defence of America, the colonists probably would not 
have objected had the money been raised with their consent. 
As one assembly said : " The people of this colony are not, and 
from their remote situation cannot be, represented in the par- 
liament of Great Britain ; and if the principle of taxing the 
colonies without their consent should be adopted, the people 
here would be subjected to the taxation of two legislatures, a 
grievance unprecedented and not to be thought of without 
anxiety." 

In 1765, owing to Grenville's mismanagement of a certain 
bill, the king fell back on the Whigs, and gave the government 
into the hands of Eockingham. The Eockingham ministry 
decided to repeal the Stamp Act because the merchants declared 
that the Americans, by refusing to buy British goods, were 
causing a falling off of British trade. In 1766 the Stamp Act 
was repealed, and Eockingham would probably have gone 
further and have modified the trade laws, had he not in 
February, 1766, suffered defeat in parliament and resigned. 

George III then requested Pitt, whom he had made earl of 
Chatham in July, 1766, to organize a ministry. Pitt, with 
Grafton as his colleague, succeeded in this task. But the day 
of Pitt's greatness had passed. He had sacrificed his popu- 
larity among the people and had lost his influence in the 
House of Commons by accepting a pension and a peerage, and, 
owing to his increasing ill health, he no longer possessed the 
power to guide the policy of the ministry. Grafton became 
the nominal head of the government, but King George, taking 
advantage of the quarrels among the members of the ministry, 
was able to compel them to do about as he pleased. 

338. The Townshend Acts. — To meet the growing needs of the 
government, Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Ex- 



342 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [1770 

chequer, pledged himself to find revenue in America. Parlia- 
ment, at his bidding, imposed new duties on glass, paper, red and 
white lead, painters' colors, and tea, imported thither.^ This 
increased the discontent in America, without bringing Great 
Britain any adequate return. The attempts made by the 
British ministers, from Grenville to Townshend, to raise 
revenue actually cost more than was received in return, 
while Townshend's reckless tampering with the spirit 
of a proud and self-reliant people cost Great Britain 
her colonies. The question as to whether or not Great Britain 
had a right to tax the colonies need not be discussed here ; but 
certain it is that a policy which benefited nobody and which 
inaugurated a period of humiliation for the British people and 
government can only be condemned. 

In September, 1767, Townshend died, and Lord North took 
his place as Chancellor of the Exchequer, with Grafton still as 
head of the ministry. All the new duties except that on tea 
were repealed ; but the retention of the tea tax counteracted 
whatever good results might have followed the repeal. One 
tax was as bad as a hundred, for the principle involved was the 
same. The colonists were now taking a higher stand than be- 
fore, and were asserting not only that parliament could not 
tax them because they were unrepresented, but also that parlia- 
ment could not legislate for them at all, in that they were 
the king's colonies and were therefore compelled to submit to 
no other authority than that of the crown. As a matter of 
fact, parliament had had little to say in colonial matters until 
after the revolution of 1688, when it began to assume certain 
of the king's prerogatives ; and this assumption the colonists 
refused to recognize. In consequence of the discontent in the 
colonies and of the fierce hostility aroused at home by the ef- 
forts of parliament to keep Wilkes out of his seat, Grafton re- 
signed on January 28, 1770, and Lord North became head of 



1 The tax on tea was ninepence less per pound in America than in England, 
but it was the principle, not the price of tea, which caused the discontent. 



1775] AMERICAN WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 343 

the ministry. He proved to be a minister after the king's own 
heart. 

339. Ministry of Lord North. — The ministry of Lord North, 
which lasted from 1770 to 1782, is memorable in that it was the 
period of the personal rule of the king which resulted in the 
independence of the American colonies. Though Lord North 
was nominally head of the government, George III was actu- 
ally both prime minister and cabinet. He was the leader of 
the new Tory party, and he had against him all sections of the 
Whigs, united as never before in his reign. The administration 
of Lord North was a Tory administration with George III as 
personal head of the party. In 1770 the cabinet of Lord North 
voted to retain the tax on tea. The arrival of the tea ships 
caused rioting in South Carolina, the burning of the Gaspee in 
Rhode Island, and the throwing overboard of the tea chests in 
Boston harbor. The "Boston tea party," as it was called, 
roused the anger of the ministry, which now determined to 
punish the insolence of the colonists. Boston harbor was de- 
clared closed, and the charter of Massachusetts was annulled. 
These " Intolerable Acts " inaugurated a policy of coercion and 
rendered reconciliation almost impossible.^ They were the 
work of the king and his ministers, but were upheld by the 
nation, who rejected compromise as humiliating. Yet com- 
promise in all probability would have been successful ; for the 
colonists, though without loyalty to the objects and purposes 
of the mother country, had at no time expressed any desire to 
separate themselves from her. On the other hand. Great 
Britain in 1775 was in no condition to carry on a war in a 
country three thousand miles away. The ministry of Lord 
North possessed no definite plans for war, little ammunition, 
and an inadequate force of soldiers and sailors. 

340. American War for Independence. — In the spring of 1775 
British troops in Massachusetts were defeated in the battles 

1 Many of England's most brilliant men, such as Pitt, Burke, and Charles 
James Fox, sympathized with the colonies. Special report : Burke's Speech 
on Conciliation. 



344 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [17S0 

of Lexington and Concord by the minute men. These events 
roused great excitement in America, though a majority of the 
colonists, representing the best men in America, still hoped 
for reconciliation. The colonists through their representative 
in the first Continental Congress petitioned the king, parlia- 
ment, and the people of England for redress of grievances, but 
in vain. On July 4, 1776, the second Continental Congress 
at Philadelphia issued the " Declaration of Independence," 
asserting that the colonies ''were and of right ought to be 
free and independent states." The colonists, thus formally 
declaring war, chose George Washington as commander-in- 
chief, but the war continued for a year without definite results 
for either side. Finally, at Saratoga, on October 17, 1777, 
Sir John Burgoyne, pushing down from Canada to cooperate 
with the British forces under Howe in New York, was com- 
pelled to surrender his whole force. This momentous event 
was the turning-point in the war. 

341. France Joins America. — France, smarting under the 
defeats of the Seven Years' War, took advantage of this favor- 
able opportunity to renew the struggle, and sent Lafayette 
with troops to aid Washington and a fleet under D'Estaing 
to the West Indies in February, 1778. So menacing did the 
danger appear that Lord North declared he was ready to grant 
the colonies almost everything they wanted except indepen- 
dence. Parliament restored the Massachusetts charter and 
repealed the tax on tea. It appointed commissioners to go to 
America to promise amnesty to all and the suspension of all 
acts relating to America passed since 1763. The commission- 
ers actually went farther, and promised that no more British 
troops should be sent to America, and that the colonies should 
have representation in the British parliament. 

But it was too late. The colonial war had now become a 
part of the old-time struggle between Great Britain and France, 
and the colonists stood by their ally. In 1779 Spain joined 
them. In 1780 Russia, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden formed 
the Armed Neutrality League, for the purpose of defending 



1783] THE NEW COLONIAL POLICY. 345 

the rights of neutrals, that is, of those not engaged in the war. 
They were determined to resist the claim of Great Britain 
that her ships had a right to seize an enemy's goods even when 
on a neutral vessel. This danger of war with half of Europe 
had a very sobering effect on the North ministry and the king. 
The Whig opposition was daily growing stronger, though 
opinion was divided as to what was the best course to pursue. 
The general election of 1780 had shown that public opinion 
was awakening, and the new parliament proved very diflScult 
for the king to manage. All controversy was cut short, how- 
ever, by the great victory of the French and Americans at 
Yorktown, October 19, 1781, where Cornwallis and his army 
surrendered. 

342. The End of the War. — On March 4, 1782, Conway 
brought forward his famous resolution against a further pros- 
ecution of the war in America; the resolution was carried 
and on the 20th Lord North resigned. The new ministry, 
made up of both sections of the Whigs, was led by Kocking- 
ham, and after his death in July, by Shelburne, the ally and 
successor of Chatham. The independence of the colonies was 
now assured and the period of the personal rule of King 
George was over. By the treaty with the United States 
signed at Paris, in January, 1783, Great Britain acknowledged 
the independence of her chief American colonies ; but she 
retained Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. She gave 
back Florida to Spain, who, possessing the Louisiana territory 
by cession from France in the treaty of 1763, now shut in the 
new republic on the south and west. 

343. The New Colonial Policy. — Excepting the loss of the 
American colonies. Great Britain had emerged from the war 
with little diminution of territory ; and that little was to be 
in a measure made up in gains elsewhere. At the very time 
of the American war Captain Cook was making his famous 
voyages and discovering New Zealand and Australia, Puget 
Sound and the Columbia River, of which he took possession in 
the name of King George. Not since the days of Elizabeth 



346 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [17S0 

tad English explorers been more active than in the years from 
1770 to 1815. From Puget Sound to Van Dieman's Land 
(Tasmania), they were laying the foundation for a wide exten- 
sion of colonial territory. In 1788 the settlement of New 
South Wales began, and Australia, New Zealand, Van Dieman's 
Land, the New Hebrides, Fiji, and other islands became 
centres of new British activity in the Pacific. 

These new possessions were not to be treated as mere sources 
of supply for the mother country, though half a century was to 
pass before England began to see the need of a more liberal 
colonial policy than that which had been employed before 1783. 
The man who did more than any one else to show that the old, 
or " mercantile," system was an injury rather than a benefit to 
England was the economist Adam Smith. In the same year 
(1776) that the Americans by their Declaration of Indepen- 
dence were protesting against the old British colonial system 
Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, was demonstrating the 
futility of the system by an appeal to facts and figures. But 
English statesmen were very slow to learn the lesson, and the 
one remaining Continental colony, Canada, as well as the West 
Indian colonies, continued to suffer for the next fifty years 
from mismanagement by the home government. The new 
colonial system did not take shape till about 1849-1850. 

344. Reforms at Home. — The effect of the war in America 
was more immediately felt at home, and reforms in government 
were introduced. In 1771 the practice of secret deliberation in 
parliament was given up, and the publication of debates was no 
longer followed by attempts to arrest and imprison the printer. 
Thenceforth, the public knew what was being said in the House 
of Commons. Toward the close of the American war, public 
opinion was aroused against the entire system of bribery and 
corruption, and from 1779 to 1781 public meetings were held to 
protest against an administration that was bringing humilia- 
tion upon England. 

In 1780 Edmund Burke, the greatest of England's orators 
and a loyal friend of the colonies, brought in an elaborate 



1783] 



REFOKMS AT HOME. 



347 



scheme for economic reform, which was designed to do away 
with useless offices, and to prevent waste in every department. 
It failed to pass in 
1780, but in 1782 was 
put through in a mod- 
ified form by the 
Rockingham minis- 
try. By this measure 
some forty or fifty 
thousand revenue offi- 
cers were forbidden 
to vote in the elec- 
tions ; forty or more 
offices, such as that of 
the king's turnspit, 
for example, were 
abolished ; the pen- 
sion list was cur- 
tailed ; the secret ser- 
vice fund was cut 
down ; and colonial 
officials were no long- 
er allowed to hold 
their positions by dep- 
uty or for life. In this way £72,000 were saved annually 
to the government, and the king's patronage was greatly re- 
duced. 

Important though this reform was, it scarcely touched the 
real evil of parliamentary and political corruption. The 
government was in the hands of an oligarchy, which governed 
in its own interests, with but slight regard for the welfare of 
the people. In 1783 a strange and unnatural combination was 
formed. The Tories, led by Lord North, allied themselves 
with the old Whigs in order to retain power and to curtail the 
influence of the king. The " old Whigs " were led by Charles 
James Fox, one of England's greatest debaters and ablest men, 




Edmund Burke. 

From I. Jones's engraving after a portrait 

by Eomney. 



348 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [1784 

but a statesman passionate and impulsive, and possessed of but 
little foresight. Against this combination of Tories and " old 
Whigs" George III fought with all the resources at his com- 
mand; and when, in December, 1783, the House of Lords de- 
feated Fox's bill for the better government of India, he called 
for the resignation of the ministry. Within twelve hours he 
had placed the government in the hands of William Pitt, son of 
the earl of Chatham. 

•345. The Younger Pitt. — When but twenty years old, Pitt 
had made his maiden speech in defending Burke's reform bill, 
and now, at the age of twent^^-five, he was Prime Minister. At 
the outset of his ministry he won popular approval by his re- 
fusal to accept pensions and sinecures, and by his single-handed 
contest with the old leaders of parliament — Fox, Burke, and 
North. The struggle lasted for three months. Pitt was de- 
feated regularly in the House of Commons, but refused to re- 
sign, confident that the country would support him if only he 
could dissolve parliament and hold a new election. Finally, 
on March 24, 1784, after three months' patient waiting, Pitt 
was able to obtain a vote to dissolve parliament. At once new 
elections were ordered, and these proved overwhelmingly fa- 
vorable to him. The combination fell from power, and Pitt 
became the centre of authority and the absolute head of the 
government. The elections were won in the same manner and by 
the same use of various methods of bribery as were all elections 
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries up to 1832. A public 
opinion had not yet come into existence as a political factor. 

Pitt was by nature a reformer, a lover of peace, a friend of 
enlightened progress. Many reform measures that he advo- 
cated failed to pass in his day, but they are worthy of consid- 
eration in that they are characteristic of the man and antici- 
pated many of the changes that came about during the next 
century. He checked smuggling, increased the revenue by 
distributing taxation more evenly, refused to allow favoritism 
in public loans, and originated a masterly scheme for the re- 
demption of the national debt. He concluded an advantage- 



1787] PITT AND INDIA: WARREN HASTINGS. 349 

ous commercial treaty with France, and sought to give Ireland 
equal commercial privileges with England. He brought in 
three measures for a reform parliament, proposing the gradual 
abolition of petty boroughs and the transfer of these seats to 
great cities like London, — measures which, like the Irish bill, 
were defeated in parliament. He showed himself in full sym- 
pathy with Clarkson and Wilberforce, who were trying to 
abolish the slave trade; with Whitbread, who wished to im- 
prove the condition of the poor ; and with others, who were at- 
tempting to establish a system of popular education. But his 
efforts were premature and he failed in all these directions. 

346. Pitt and India : Warren Hastings. — Not only was Pitt 
able to deal with the details of domestic reform, but he had a 
mind broad enough to grasp also the intricate problems of em- 
pire. For twenty years the great question of the government 
of India had been before the country. In 1773 a regulating 
act had been passed by parliament, to check the abuses of the 
East India Company, which was in control of India ; and Warren 
Hastings had been sent out as the first governor-general under 
the act. In 1784 Pitt framed a measure which left commercial 
matters in the hands of the company, but gave political con- 
trol to the British government. Under this system India was 
governed till 1858. 

In 1785 Hastings, after thirteen years of efficient service, 
returned to England, and was immediately confronted with 
charges of maladministration, cruelty, and corruption in deal- 
ing with the native princes of India. Burke attacked Hast- 
ings with all the fire of his eloquence ; and Pitt, on the ground 
that the acts of public servants should be kept under strict 
scrutiny, sustained the prosecution. In 1787 Hastings was 
impeached and tried before the House of Lords. The malev- 
olence of Hastings's enemies and the oratory of Burke exag- 
gerated the importance of the trial at the time ; while the 
matchless rhetoric of Macaulay in his essay on Hastings un- 
vduly magnified the whole affair in the century that followed. 
Hastings was eventually acquitted of all the charges. 



350 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [1797 

347. The French Revolution. — In Europe a much more vital 
question than the government of India was becoming prominent. 
In 1789 the estates-general of France had met for the first time 
since 1614, and at once that great revolution began which over- 
threw the power of the French nobility, brought about the 
death of King Louis XVI, and established the first republic in 
France. 

At first many persons in England, among them Fox, greeted 
the movement with satisfaction, believing that it would result 
in the overthrow of tyranny and the establishment of liberty. 
But Burke saw with alarm the overthrow of the old institutions, 
and in his Reflections on the French Revolution viewed the 
future with grave apprehensions. Pitt, agreeing with Burke 
rather than with Fox, continued his efforts to avoid war, but 
the policy of the French revolutionists rendered his efforts of 
no avail. In 1792 the leaders of the French Legislative As- 
sembly declared war on Europe. The events of the war that 
followed led to an increase of revolutionary fever in Paris, which 
ended in massacres in that city (September, 1792), the procla- 
mation of the republic (September, 1792), and the execution of 
the king (January, 1793). These events made it impossible for 
Pitt to maintain a peace policy any longer. The excitement in 
England, due to the attack on monarchy by the French republi- 
canSj was increased by the decrees passed by the National 
Convention, — the body which succeeded the Legislative As- 
sembly in France, — fiercely attacking the institutions of all 
monarchical countries, and threatening war for the overthrow 
of kingdoms and the establishment of republics wherever possi- 
ble. Before Pitt's ministry could take any step, the Convention 
itself had declared war against England (February 1, 1793). 

The First Coalition consisted at first of Austria and Prussia. 
War began in 1792, and in 1793 Great Britain and Holland 
entered the alliance. Holland was conquered by the French 
and transformed into the Batavian Republic in 1795 ; in the 
same year Prussia withdrew from the coalition. Austria fought 
on till 1797, when it signed the treaty of Campo-Formio with 



1792-1815] THE EFFECT OF THE REVOLUTION. 351 

France. Great Britain alone remained. Her share in the war 
consisted in sending money and troops to the Continent, and in 
employing her navy to blockade French harbors and to seize 
the vessels and the colonies of France and of the French allies, 
Spain and the Batavian Republic. Her efforts on land were 
largely unsuccessful. The siege of Toulon (1793), a port in the 
Mediterranean that Great Britain desired to make the base of 
further operations for the restoration of the French monarchy, 
was defeated by the skill of Captain Napoleon Bonaparte and 
the courage of the French soldiers. At sea she made a better 
record. Howe defeated the French fleet off Brest in 1794; 
Jervis crippled the Spanish fleet by a victory off Cape St. Vin- 
cent in 1797 ; and Duncan restored the prestige of the navy and 
checked a projected invasion of Ireland by the defeat of the 
Dutch at Camperdown, October 11, 1797. In the world beyond 
the seas, Great Britain captured the Cape of Good Hope and 
Ceylon from the Batavian Republic in 1795 and 1796 ; in 1797 
she took Trinidad from Spain. 

348. The Eifect of the Revolution on England. — The French 
Revolution and the war with France checked England's progress 
and brought to an end Pitt's efforts at reform. There is no 
proof of any organized effort anywhere to propagate French 
revolutionary ideas in England, but the nobility and the aristo- 
cratic families, sustaining Burke and Pitt in parliament, sternly 
repressed every proposal to extend the franchise or to increase 
in any way the power of the people. Even Pitt himself, in 
1792, refused to consider further measures for reforming par- 
liament. Anticipating a revolution in England, parliament 
twice suspended the Habeas Corpus Act, passed laws against 
foreigners, checked the freedom of public discussion, and pun- 
ished severely all who protested against the laws. An attack 
on George III (1795) was followed by restrictive measures for- 
bidding all speaking against the king, and controlling public 
meetings and the right of discussion. Thus under the control 
of the aristocratic and Tory party reaction and repression pre- 
vailed in England during the period from 1792 to 1815, checking 



352 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [1800 

freedom of speech and association and postponing indefinitely 
all movements toward reform. 

349. Union with Ireland. — Next to the war with France, no 
question at this time was of greater moment than that of Eng- 
land's relations with Ireland. Only a fourth of the Irish 
possessed political privileges, and the Irish parliament that 
governed them was not representative even of that fourth. 
The Protestants, who desired an increase of parliamentary in- 
dependence and a measure of commercial privilege, organized 
in 1778 the Patriotic party, and sought to conciliate the Roman 
Catholics. They demanded of England free trade and a free 
parliament. Lord North, involved in the American war, made 
a few commercial concessions in 1779 ; and in 1782 Eocking- 
ham freed the Irish parliament from the control of the English 
government. In 1785 Pitt came forward with a new plan, 
whereby he hoped " to unite the two countries on some sure 
basis of commercial intercourse and common interest." But 
the English parliament rejected his proposal. 

This put the Irish in a condition of mind to be deeply af- 
fected by the French Revolution. Some desired an alliance 
with France, others the entire overthrow of British control 
and the establishment of an Irish republic, while nearly all de- 
manded the reform of the Irish parliament. Pitt tried to give 
the Roman Catholics representation in the Irish parliament, 
but George III refused to sanction the measure. So the Irish 
determined to obtain independence by revolution. In 1796, 
and again in 1797, the French endeavored to help them by 
sending troops to their aid. In 1798 the Irish revolution had 
attained such proportions that a veritable reign of terror en- 
sued in the island. 

At this point Pitt came to the conclusion that the only rem- 
edy for Irish discontent was the parliamentary union of Ireland 
with Great Britain. So he obtained from the Irish parliament, 
by corrupt means if not by direct bribery of the members, a 
vote favorable to his scheme. On July 21, 1800, the Act of 
Union was passed and Ireland became a part of the United 



1799] WAR WITH FRANCE : THE SECOND COALITION. 353 

Kingdom. The Irish cross was added to the Union Jack (p. 
322) ; and after January, 1801, four bishops, twenty peers, and 
one hundred Irish members sat in the English parliament. 

350. War with France : the Second Coalition. — In 1797 Pitt 
entered into negotiations with France for the purpose of ending 
the war. But a financial crisis had just occurred in London, 
and the French commissioners, believing that Great Britain 
was exhausted, proposed to take Gibraltar, the Channel Islands, 
and perhaps a part of Newfoundland, — concessions that Great 
Britain would not for a moment listen to. So the war went on, 
but under new conditions. 

In Italy Napoleon Bonaparte, after a series of magnificent 
victories, had forced Austria to sign the treaty of Campo-Formio 
(1797). After this campaign, Bonaparte became the real di- 
rector of the French policy, and soon showed that his chief 
object was to compass the overthrow of Great Britain. To 
accomplish this he formed three plans of attack, any or all of 
which might be brought into use : (1) to invade England di- 
rectly ; (2) to attack her on the Continent by depriving her of 
Hanover; (3) to undertake an expedition in the east which 
would threaten her trade with the Indies. As only the last of 
these plans seemed practicable at that time, Bonaparte set out 
for Egypt in 1797, to force Great Britain to a peace by de- 
stroying her eastern commerce. But his elaborate undertaking 
ended in disaster. His fleet was annihilated by the British 
admiral, Horatio Nelson, in the battle of the Nile, August 1, 
1798, a victory which cut off Bonaparte from France and won 
for England the control of the Mediterranean. .At St. John 
Acre, in Syria, the British general, Sydney Smith, checked the 
advance of Bonaparte toward the northeast and compelled him 
to be satisfied with establishing French control in Egypt. 

Meanwhile Eussia and Austria formed with Great Britain 
the Second Coalition and renewed the war. Bonaparte returned 
from Egypt in 1799, and overthrowing the French government, 
made himself, as First Consul, the head of the French state. 
In this position he was able more vigorously than ever to carry 



354 



EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. 



[1801 



on the war with the Second Coalition ; for a single head is al- 
ways more powerful in war and diplomacy than a board of 

directors or a minis- 
try dependent on 
parliament. In 1800 
he overwhelmed Aus- 
tria in the battles of 
Holienlinden and Ma- 
rengo, and in 1801 
forced her to sign the 
treaty of Luneville. 
Eussia, jealous of 
Austria, had already 
withdrawn from the 
coalition, so that for 
the second time 
Great Britain re- 
mained alone, and 
Bonaparte seemed 
powerless to injure 
her. She maintained 
her hold on Malta 
and the Mediterra- 
nean and finally won 
back Egypt. She 
checked all Bonaparte's attempts to aid the revolting Irish, 
and by winning the battle of Copenhagen, April 2, 1801, ob- 
tained the mastery of the Baltic. Bonaparte was master on 
the land, but Great Britain was still mistress of the sea. 

351. ThePeace of Amiens. — In 1801 social and economic 
conditions caused a cessation of hostilities. In France Bona- 
parte wished to obtain peace in order to organize the govern- 
ment there, and to prepare for the gigantic struggle for empire 
that he knew was before him. Great Britain was equally 
willing to have peace. Her people were passing through an 
industrial revolution. Population and wealth were increasing, 




Admiral Nelson. 
From a painting by L. F. Abbott. 



1802] NAPOLEON'S COLONIAL POLICY. 355 

towns were growing, workmen were shifting their occupation 
from the cottage to the factories, employment was becoming 
uncertain, the poor were suffering, and on every hand new 
economic and social problems were arising. The national debt 
had increased to more than £500,000,000. Ireland was not 
yet reconciled to the Act of Union, and time was needed to 
improve the conditions in that island. 

In February, 1801, Pitt resigned, because George III had 
positively refused to consider any measure whereby the Roman 
Catholics in England might be granted political rights ; and a 
Whig ministry, with Addington at its head, had come into 
power. By an irony of fate, this commonplace and nerveless 
leader, a minister at the king's command, was called upon to 
conduct the foreign affairs of Great Britain at one of the 
most critical periods in the history of the war. In the peace 
negotiations during 1801, the Addington ministry gave way 
on almost every important point. Great Britain restored 
to France, Spain, and the Batavian Eepublic all that she 
had taken from them, retaining only Trinidad and Ceylon. 
Egypt was restored to Turkey, and Malta was promised to 
the former owners, the Knights of St. John; Great Britain 
restored all ports and islands that she held in the Adriatic 
and Mediterranean ; and to complete this exhibition of amia- 
bility, George III threw in the title of "King of France," 
which he and his predecessors had borne since 1340. 

In arranging these preliminaries Bonaparte scored a great 
diplomatic victory. " The only British gains after nine years 
of warfare, fruitful in naval triumphs, but entailing an addition 
of £290,000,000 to the national debt, were the islands of 
Trinidad and the Dutch possessions in Ceylon." The formal 
treaty was signed at Amiens on March 25, 1802. 

352. Napoleon's Colonial Policy. — By this treaty France re- 
gained all her lost colonies, and Napoleon was determined 
to make these the basis of a new colonial empire to take the 
place of that which Great Britain had destroyed in the Seven 
Years' War. 



356 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [1802 

As soon as the treaty was signed, Napoleon undertook to 
carry out his plan: (1) he reestablished the authority of 
France in Haiti in 1802, and made that place a base of 
operations in the West Indies ; (2) he prepared an expedition 
to 'New Orleans, called upon Spain to issue an order closing 
the lower Mississipjoi to vessels of the United States, and 
demanded the transfer of the Louisiana territory to France; 
(3) he sent an army to India to recover French control there 
(1802) ; and (4) for the purpose of claiming Australia for 
France, he planned to make use of a scientific expedition 
that had been sent to the island continent in 1800. This 
scheme was a grand one, even for Napoleon, and had it 
succeeded would have created a colonial empire for France 
that might have rivalled that of Great Britain. 

But it failed. Of the expedition to Haiti and San Domingo 
twenty officers and thirty thousand men died in the fever 
swamps of those islands. Thereupon Napoleon abandoned 
the expedition to New Orleans, and sold Louisiana in 1803 
to the United States for $15,000,000, thus giving up his plan 
of a French empire in the western world. In the east he was 
no more successful. The attempt to annex Australia came 
to nothing, because British explorers had already claimed the 
island by right of first discovery, and were in actual possession 
of the coast. In India also the attempts of the French to 
recover their influence there were rendered ineffectual by the 
brilliant victories of the English under Sir Arthur Wellesley. 

In 1802 the English began to suspect that Napoleon was 
preparing to cripple Great Britain by striking at her colonies 
and her commerce. They watched with suspicion his attempt 
to exclude from France British manufactures, such as hard- 
ware, cotton, and woollen goods ; and they learned with great 
uneasiness of his various colonial enterprises. They feared 
that he would seize Malta in order to control the Mediterra- 
nean, possibly attack Turkey, regain Egypt, and, with the 
Cape of Good Hope in his possession, overthrow the East 
India Company in India. So strained had become the rela- 



1805] THE TfflRD COALITION. 357 

tious between France and Great Britain by May, 1803, that 
the Addington ministry, acknowledged by all to be too weak 
to cope with the situation, resigned, and Pitt was recalled as 
Prime Minister. On May 20 war was formally declared. 

353. Renewal of War : Napoleon's Attempt to Invade England. 
— In Great Britain the war fever rose to the highest pitch. 
Volunteer regiments were equipped, coast defences com- 
pleted, and the navy began a running attack on French ports 
and seized the best of the French islands in the West Indies. 
Not content with these measures, the British government gave 
aid to conspiracies and plots against Napoleon. But all these 
conspiracies came to nothing, and in 1804 Napoleon Bonaparte 
was crowned emperor of the French as Napoleon I. 

To prepare for an invasion of England, Napoleon had been 
massing his forces at Boulogne for nearly a year. But to cross 
the Channel with an army he needed possession of that strait 
for the full time of the passage ; and to obtain such possession 
he had to get a part of the British fleet out of the way. For 
this purpose Napoleon sent Admiral Yilleneuve to the West 
Indies, that the latter might draw off Nelson's squadron in 
pursuit. Villeneuve was then to return with all speed, leav- 
ing Nelson behind. Napoleon hoped that the French fleet, 
outnumbering the remaining British ships, would be able to 
guard the Channel. But the plan miscarried. Villeneuve 
sailed for the West Indies and Nelson followed him. But on 
his return, the French admiral was confronted off Cape Finis- 
terre by another part of the British squadron, and compelled 
to engage in a battle, on July 22, 1805, which seriously crip- 
pled him, so that he turned back and sought refuge in the 
harbor of Cadiz. Napoleon waited for him in vain at Boulogne 
and all hope of an invasion of England vanished. 

.354. The Third Coalition. — Meanwhile Russia and Austria, 
enraged at Napoleon's continued insults to them, had made an 
alliance with England and formed the Third Coalition. Thus 
not only Great Britain, mistress of the seas, but Russia and 
Austria, the two greatest land powers, were ranged against 



358 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [1812 

Napoleon. But he, undaunted by his failure at Boulogne, 
turned with lightning rapidity on Austria and crushed her 
in the siege of Ulm (October 11) and the battle of Austerlitz 
(December 2, 1805). But fortune refused to favor him at 
sea. On October 21 Admiral Nelson met the Frencb and 
Spanish fleets off Cape Trafalgar and came off victor in one 
of the greatest sea-fights in history. The battle of Trafalgar 
destroyed forever Napoleon's hopes of winning control of the 
ocean, and marked a new era in the growth of the British 
Empire.* 

355. The, Continental System. — But Napoleon was gradually 
winning control of the Continent : Austria in 1805, Prussia in 
1806, and Russia in 1806 and 1807 fell before his military 
genius ; and when he made a treaty with the Czar, Alexander 
I, in 1807, he seemed to be master of the fortunes of western 
Europe. But every effort to crush Great Britain had failed ; 
and now, with the power of the Continent behind him, he de- 
termined to make one more mighty effort to destroy her. 
Believing that the strength of Great Britain lay in her com- 
merce, he determined to ruin her by excluding her goods from 
France and from all the other states of Europe under his 
control. 

On May 16, 1806, he issued a decree, declaring that the Brit- 
ish Isles were in a state of blockade, and he threatened to seize 
the ships of any country that traded with them. Great Brit- 
ain replied by threatening to seize the ships of any country 
that traded with France or her allies. Then in 1807 Napoleon 
replied by threatening to seize every neutral vessel that obeyed 
the British orders ; but without a navy he could not enforce 
his decrees, and an enormous amount of smuggling went on 
at every important port. In the end, this trade war injured 
Napoleon and France more than it did Great Britain. 

356. The War of 1812. — At the same time Great Britain 
was putting herself in the wrong by her aggressive policy 

1 Special report : The Death of Nelson at Trafalgar. 



1813] THE PENINSULAR WAE. 359 

toward neutrals. Her order forbidding them to trade directly 
with the Continent, and her claim of the right to search neutral 
vessels for contraband goods ^ or British deserters, roused the 
United States to a declaration of war (June 18, 1812). The 
war, conducted in part on land and in greater part on sea, 
ended ingloriously for Great Britain. The American sailors 
proved the better seamen, and a series of naval conflicts ter- 
minated in a great victory for Perry, who defeated the British 
on Lake Erie. On the land the British force captured and 
burned the city .of Washington ; desultory fighting went on 
along the Canadian frontier ; and Jackson won an important 
victory over the British at New Orleans. Peace was finally 
signed at Ghent, December 24, 1814. This war, but a side 
issue in England's great military operations, gave a splendid 
impetus to American national unity. 

357. The Peninsular War. — In 1808 Spain, allied with Portu- 
gal, rose in revolt against ISTapoleon, and Great Britain at once 
despatched Wellesley, recently recalled from India, to Portu- 
gal. In August, 1808, Wellesley landed on the coast near Lis- 
bon, and from 1808 to 1814 this great general, often neglected 
by his own government, and thwarted by the Portuguese and 
Spaniards whom he had come to aid, fought courageously on. 
Napoleon at first endeavored to conduct the campaign in per- 
son, but in 1809 he was called back to central Europe by an 
uprising in Austria. At Wagram he defeated the Austrians 
for the fourth time. In 1812 he began his fatal march on 
Moscow.^ In 1813 he struggled with wonderful genius against 
Prussia and Russia in the wars of liberation ; until finally he 
was thoroughly beaten by the Fourth Coalition at Leipzig 
in the Battle of the Nations, and compelled to return to 
I'rance. All these years Wellesley, who had been made duke 
of Wellington in 1809, was fighting in Spain. Supplied with 
troops from England by sea, he was able to engage three hun- 

1 " Contraband goods " means supplies for carrying on war. 
2 Special report : The Retreat from Moscow. 



360 



EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. 



[1815 



dred thousand of JSTapoleon's best soldiers at a time when the 
emperor stood in greatest need of them. Little by little he 
cleared Spain" of French troops, got control of one district after 

another, and in 1814 
crossed into France. 
There he joined the 
armies of the other 
allies, which, win- 
ning victories on 
French soil, com- 
pelled Napoleon to 
abdicate, April 6, 
1814. 

358. Congress of 
Vienna : Waterloo. — - 
Napoleon was exiled 
to Elba, and the Bour- 
bons were restored in 
France (1814). To 
settle the future of 
Europe, a great con- 
gress, the most im- 
portant thus far in 
the history of the 
world, was held at 
Vienna. While the 




From, a portrait painting. 
Arthur Welleslet, Duke of Wellington. 



congress was still in session. Napoleon escaped from Elba 
and returning to France, established his authority once more 
in the famous " Hundred Days." Though he promised to 
rule in peace, the allies would not consent to his restoration, 
and immediately set their armies in motion against him. At 
Waterloo on the frontier of Belgium, June 18, 1815, he was 
totally defeated by the combined forces of England, under 
Wellington, and of Prussia, under Bllicher. After abdicating 
for the second time. Napoleon was sent to the island of St. 
Helena, in the south Atlantic, where he died in 1821. The 



1815] CONGRESS OF VIENNA: WATERLOO. 361 

Congress of Vienna went on with its work; and in a great 
treaty of 1815 completed the rearrangement of the map of 
Europe. Peace had at last come to the nations, and England 
was released from war to enter upon a new era of growth and 
reform. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

An Era of Eeform, Dbmockacy, and Empire. 

359. Condition of Great Britain. — During the twenty -three 
years that Great Britain had been at war, she had won an 
influential position in the councils of Europe, and had become 
the first naval power in the world. But these gains abroad 
had been made at the expense of prosperity, reform, and 
progress at home. During the war, the government had made 
scarcely one important attempt to improve the condition of the 
British people ; all its energies had been consumed in the great 
task of raising money to subsidize allies, to equip armies, and to 
build ships. Now that war was over, Great Britain had to face 
an enormous debt, heavy taxes, high prices, increasing pauper- 
ism, badly managed factories, crowded and ill-governed towns, 
and a thousand other conditions that were making the laborers 
and middle classes dissatisfied, sullen, and rebellious. 

360. Industrial Changes. — Since Walpole's time great in- 
dustrial changes had taken place in England. Manufacturing, 
which had begun in the fourteenth century, had received a new 
stimulus at the end of the eighteenth ; but, although the 
number of industries had greatly increased, the methods were 
still primitive. Weaving had been carried on by workmen in 
their cottages, and spinning had been largely done by women 
and girls in their hours of leisure. Great impetus was given 
to these manufactures by the invention of Hargreave's " spin- 
ning-jenny " in 1764 and of the Cartwright weaving machine 
in 1785, and by the perfecting of the steam engine by Watt 
during the period from 1760 to 1790. Coal and coke came to 
be substituted for wood and charcoal, and improvements in the 

362 



1800] INDUSTRIAL CHANGES. 363 

iron industry rendered that commodity more available for 
general use. This cheap production demanded more rapid dis- 
tribution, so in 1761 the first canal was built, and roads, which 
had been almost impassable during the eighteenth century, 
were constructed for the first time of layers of broken stone, a 
method perfected by a Scottish engineer, John Macadam. 

Along with these improvements in manufacturing went im- 
provements in agriculture. Wet lands were drained; poor 
lands were transformed by manuring and fertilizing; new 
seeds and roots were introduced ; and the breeds of animals 
improved in appearance, weight, and strength. The use of 
costly machinery Avas introduced by the great landowners. 
The small farmers could not compete with these improved 
methods and were constantly forced to sell. Wealthy mer- 
chants were eager to buy, for political power and social posi- 
tion depended on the possession of large estates. Thus by 
1800 the class of small landholders had largely disappeared, 
some drifting to the towns, others living on the lord's estate as 
cottagers. 

361. Results of these Changes. — The first effects of these 
changes were discouraging. Machinery took away the employ- 
ment of the home laborers, the factory system took the place 
of domestic industry ; and great landowners controlled the 
farms of England. Men and women crowded into the towns 
and labored in factories, mines, and great industrial establish- 
ments, where wages were low, hours long, and sanitary condi- 
tions unspeakable.^ The government did not interfere, but let 

1 " The most important legislation of the century was the labor and factory- 
legislation. The new factory system had proved fatally cruel to women and 
children, who for a long time made up the greater portion of the employees. 
Parish authorities had the power to take children from pauper families in 
order to apprentice them to employers ; and destitute or dissolute parents 
sold their offspring into such service by written contracts. In the early years 
of the century, gangs of helpless little ones from six and seven years upward, 
secured in this way, were auctioned off, thousands at a time, to great factories, 
where their life was a ghastly slavery. They received no wages ; they were 
clothed in rags ; their food was insufficient and of the coarsest kind ; and often 



364 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [1819 

employers and employees settle affairs among themselves. 
Under this system, factories and mines became death traps for 
the women and children who worked in them. The evil was 
aggravated by the abominable poor law, which made paupers of 
one-seventh of England's population. Crime increased ; society 
became brutalized. The tone of the law courts was low — 
judges browbeat the prisoners, lawyers bullied the witnesses, 
and the whole administration of law and justice savored of 
barbarism. It is difficult to realize the cruelty and injustice 
shown by men of the privileged classes for those who were 
without political influence, money, title, or certain employ- 
ment. 

362. Political Unrest (i 8 1 5-1 820). — Politically as well as 
industrially the years immediately following the return of 
peace were characterized by agitation and unrest. 

The king, George III, an old man and at times insane, was 
ruling under the regency of his son, the Prince of Wales. Par- 
liament was representative only of the landowning and moneyed 
classes, and had little sympathy with the people, and for. five 
years the Tory government which came into power in 1815 did 
nothing to alleviate the distress of the masses. Under such 
circumstances, leaders arose who did not believe in moderation 
or compromise, but who desired radical changes. These men 
were called Eadicals, and they tried to gain their ends by agi- 
tation. A series of popular movements culminated in the 
famous gathering at St. Peter's field, Manchester, in 1819, 
where fifty thousand persons met to protest against the policy 



they had to eat standing at their work, while the machinery was in motion. 
They were driven to work from twelve to sixteen hours a day, often by inhuman 
torture ; they had no holidays, and the few hours for sleep were spent in filthy 
beds, from which some other relay of little workers had just been roused. 
Schooling or recreation there was none; and the poor little waifs — girls as 
well as boys — grew up, if they lived at all, amid shocking and brutal immo- 
rality. When one batch of such labor had been used up, another was always 
ready, at practically no cost ; and the employers showed a disregard for even 
the mei'e physical well-being of their ' white slaves,' such as no negro-driver 
could ever afford toward his costly black chattels." — West, Modern History. 



1829] BEGINNING OF REFORM. 365 

of the government. The cavalry broke up the crowd and killed 
half a dozen people, whence the name " Massacre of Peterloo." 

Parliament now passed (November, 1819) the Six Acts, — 
called the "Ga,g Laws," — the most important of which prohib- 
ited public meetings for the consideration of grievances. The 
government was also unfortunate in its other measures. In 181 5 
it had passed the first Corn Law, which practically put a tariff 
on foreign corn ; and that, too, in the face of great scarcity of 
corn at home. The Corn Law was passed in the interest of the 
landowners, and it increased the distress of the poor, who could 
not buy corn on account of its high price. At the same time 
parliament removed the income tax. Each of these measures 
made more intense than before the hatred that the poor classes 
felt against the rich. 

363. Beginning of Reform. — At the death of George III in 
1820, his son came to the throne as George IV. A new group 
of men now came forward, chief among whom were Can- 
ning, Huskisson, Sir John Russell, and Sir Robert Peel. In 
1822, when Peel became Home Secretary and Canning Foreign 
Secretary in the cabinet, the era of reform may be said to begin. 
These men were moderate Tories, who had an appreciation of 
the needs of the country, and they straightway went about the 
work of reform. In 1823 the criminal code was made more 
civilized by the abolition of the death penalty for about a hun- 
dred offences. In the same year, acting under the guidance of 
Huskisson, parliament reduced the customs duties on raw ma- 
terials, modified the Navigation Acts, cut down the interest on 
the national debt, and made the Corn Law less rigid. In 1824 
it permitted working men to form trade unions. 

But most important of all was the measure granting to Roman 
Catholics full political rights. George IV was as bitter against 
this measure as his father had been, but the House of Com- 
mons was favorable. Por four years the question was agitated, 
till finally Peel brought forward a measure, which was passed 
on April 13, 1829, restoring to the Roman Catholics member- 
ship in parliament, the right to hold all military offices, and 



366 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [1828 

nearly every civil office. Though king, House of Lords, and 
people at large were opposed to the measure, it became law, 
because civil war was threatened in Ireland, and something 
had to be done. This measure, a simple act of justice, effected 
an important political change in admitting a body of new and 
influential men into parliament. Already in 1828 Dissenters 
had been allowed to hold office in the towns and under the crown. 
But Unitarians and Jews were still debarred from parliament. 
364. Need of Electoral and Parliamentary Reform. — The ques- 
tion of extending to the middle classes the right to vote had 
been before the country for half a century. Thus far the ob- 
stinacy of the aristocracy and moneyed classes, the distractions 
of the long war with IsTapoleon, and the excessive demands of 
the Radicals, who wished universal suffrage, had combined to 
prevent the adoption of any measure extending the franchise. 
But the industrial revolution, supplementing the religious re- 
vival of Wesley, had given new importance to the men whose 
industry was the chief source of British wealth and the 
backbone of British commerce. The American Revolution 
and the establishment of the republic in France had tended 
to make those without political rights in England discontented 
with their position and determined to gain for themselves a 
share in government. The electoral system was notoriously 
unfair. Parliament was made up of 658 members so distrib- 
uted that ten southern counties had nearly as many members 
as the thirty central and northern counties.^ The boroughs of 

iThe boroughs of Cornwall, for example, had returned for two centuries 
and a half forty-four members, and this number was not decreased until 1821, 
when Grampound was disenfranchised. Thus this under-populated county 
returned as many borough members, less one, as all Scotland, and more by 
two than the densely populated counties of Durham, Northumberland, and 
York. Bossiney in Cornwall was a hamlet of three cottages, possessing nine 
electors, eight of whom belonged to one family. Yet this hamlet sent two 
members to parliament. Michell had five voters ; Gatton, seven ; Old Sarum 
had no voters at all — yet each was represented in parliament. There were in 
Cornwall about one thousand voters and forty-two members; of the latter 
twenty were actually controlled by seven peers, twenty-one by eleven com- 
moners, and only one was in any sense of the word freely elected. 



1828] 



NEED OF ELECTORAL REFORM. 



367 



the south had more than their fair share of representatives, 
while those of the active and populous north sent fewer mem- 




Frora a photograph. 
Old Slate Houses in Tintagel, Cornwall. 

bers to parliament than they should have done according to 
their population. 

Besides being unfairly distributed, these members were not 
representative. Of the entire body of members less than a 
third were in any sense of the word elected. The others came 
from " pocket boroughs," whose representatives were named by 
influential individuals or families; or from ''rotten boroughs," 
some of which were not boroughs at all, but were places almost 
uninhabited, where the right to return members was controlled 
by one or more property owners.^ For a century this condition 

1 The duke of Norfolk could control eleven seats. It is generally estimated 
that of the 658 members of parliament, 487 were named by single individuals. 
Seventy members came from thirty-five boroughs with almost no electors at 



368 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



[1830 



of things had prevailed. Something had been done to check 
bribery and corruption; but nothing whatever had been done 

to extend the right 
to vote, to make the 
methods of voting 
uniform among the 
towns and counties, 
or to give to great 
and growing towns, 
like Manchester, 
Birmingham, 
Leeds, and Sheffield, 
a share in represen- 
tation. 

365. The Fight for 
Electoral Reform. — 
On June 26, 1830, 
George IV died, and 
his brother, a popu- 
lar and genial sailor, 
with fewer preju- 
dices than his Han- 
overian predecessors 
had possessed, came 
to the throne as William IV. The question of electoral re^ 
form was especially helped at this time by the Revolution of 
1830 in France which had overturned a king there, and by 
the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad which 
demonstrated that the north and midland regions were the 

all ; ninety from forty-five places with less than fifty electors ; thirty-seven 
from nineteen places with not more than one hundred electors. Bribery 
went on wholesale: electors, elected, and even whole borough corporations 
were bought. Sudbury offered itself for sale in public advertisement; 
Oxford openly sold its representatives ; men occasionally bid as at an auction 
for the corporation vote; holders of the pocket boroughs made it known 
publicly that they were open to offers. Other instances are equally notorious, 
where the right to name representatives was traded in by purchasers. 





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From a portrait painting. 
William IV. 



1831] 



THE FIGHT FOR ELECTORAL REFORM. 



369 




industrial centres of Britain and that they were unfairly 
represented. When parliament met, however, Wellington 
opposed all attempts 
at reform and there- 
by wrecked his min- 
istry and his party, 
t h e conservative 
Tories. At once he 
was overthrown by 
a union of discon- 
tented Tories with 
the Whigs. His 
place was taken by 
Earl Grey, a Whig 
and a liberal, whose 
ministry was com- 
mitted to the cause 
of electoral reform. 
In March, 1831, 
Lord John Russell 
brought in the First 

Reform Bill,^ but it was defeated. Then the ministry appealed 
to the country, and a new parliament was elected. A second bill 
was passed only to be rejected by the House of Lords. The 
excitement in the country rose to fever-heat. Even the work- 
ing classes, who were not benefited by the bill, joined in the 
agitation. Associations were formed, mass-meetings held, and 






From a contemporary d^'awing. 
The First Steam Engine. 
In the competition held in Manchester, 1829, 
for the trying out of the locomotive engines, 
George and Robert Stephenson easily won 
the award. One of the losers was John 
Ericsson, who later emigrated to America 
and was the inventor of the ironclad Moni- 
tor which defeated the Merrimac, 1862. ' 



1 Lord Russell, in introducing the hill, asked the House to consider the 
amazement of a stranger who had come to observe the boasted representative 
institutions of England and was shown a ruined mound (Old Sarum) and was 
told that it sent two representatives to parliament ; and then taken to a stone 
wall with three niches in it (Corfe Castle) and was told that it sent two repre- 
sentatives to parliament ; and then to a green park (Gatton) containing no 
sign of human habitation, only to discover that this park had two represen- 
tatives in parliament ; while prosperous and flourishing cities like Manches- 
ter, Birmingham, Leeds, and Sheffield, some with over one hundred thousand 
inhabitants, had no representatives at all. 



2b 



370 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [1832 

processions planned in London, Manchester, Birmingliam, and 
other central and northern cities. Probably at no time in Eng- 
lish history had excitement been so intense or so widespread. 
When, in December, 1831, parliament passed a third bill, the 
Lords did not dare reject it, fearing civil war. But they tried 
to amend it. Earl Grey asked William IV to create enough 
new peers to carry the bill, but the king refused. Grey re- 
signed. Then William IV called on Wellington to form a 
ministry ; but the Tory party had lost its unity in the face of 
the popular agitation, and Wellington could do nothing. Grey 
returned to office and the passage of the Reform Bill was as- 
sured. The Lords who opposed the measure, when threatened 
by the king with the appointment of enough new peers to 
carry the bill, refrained from voting, and on June 7, 1832, the 
measure became law. 

366. The Reform Bill of 1832. —By the Reform Act, the first 
measure of its kind in English history, the franchise was given 
to the middle classes — in the counties to all copyholders and 
leaseholders (farmers and tenants) of land worth £10 a year, 
and to tenants-at-will holding an estate worth £50 a year; and 
in the boroughs to all holders of houses worth £10 a year. 
But by placing a property qualification on the right to vote, 
it denied that right to the industrial, agricultural, and mining 
classes. The actual number of voters was increased from four 
hundred and thirty thousand to six hundred and fifty thousand ; 
that is, one in every twenty-one of the population became an 
elector. The voting qualification was for the first time made 
uniform throughout Great Britain and voting methods were 
vastly improved by a system of registration, by the adoption 
of smaller voting districts, and by the fixing of a time limit of 
two days within which the vote must be cast. 

Just as important as this extension of the franchise was the 
redistribution of seats in parliament. Many boroughs were de- 
prived of their members, or had their membership reduced. 
Of the seats thus gained sixty-five were given to the English, 
eight to the Scottish, and five to the Irish counties 5 the other 




A T I A k T I 

^ c m A N 



1835] FUETHER REFORMS. 371 

seventy-eiglit seats were distributed among the midland towns, 
such as Manchester and Birmingham. Thus the House of 
Commons became, as it had never been before, an elective and 
representative body, though onlj of the upper and middle 
classes. 

367. Further Reforms. — In the autumn of 1832, as was to be 
expected, the new voters sent up a large majority for the Whig 
ministers. The old Whig party, now counting the Radicals 
among tbeir numbers, took the name Liberals, and the Tories, 
realizing the great unpopularity of their party name, began to 
call themselves the Conservatives. This victory of the Liberals 
ushered in a series of remarkable reforms that began the social 
and administrative regeneration of England. It was not enough 
merely to reform the constitution of the central government, it 
was equally important to improve the administration of local 
affairs in the towns and counties. 

Reform of the Poor Law. — The first great reform undertaken 
by parliament was in the administration of the Poor Law. Bad 
laws and incompetent management had brought affairs into a 
deplorable condition and the report of a commission appointed 
in 1834 showed the population of England sinking lower and 
lower in physical and moral degradation. By the act of August, 
1834, a far-reaching change was effected. Parishes were com- 
bined with unions in each of which was elected a board of 
guardians, to administer relief in efficient and economical fashion, 
and over all were the Poor Law Commissioners appointed by 
the government. Though many additional changes were to be 
made after 1834, the main features of the Poor Law system were 
established at that time, the most important of which was the 
taking of the administration of the law out of the hands of the 
justices of the peace, the local gentry, and giving it to a hoard of 
guardians elected by the tax payers. This was the substitiition 
of a democratic for an aristocratic system. 

Municipal Reform. — Equally important was the reform of 
the government of the towns and cities. Before 1835 borough 
customs varied everywhere, and the report of a commission dis- 



372 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [1833 

closed sucli a chaos of misgovern ment and corruption as to 
arouse amazement that such a condition of things had been en- 
dured so long. The Municipal Corporations Act of September, 
1835, created a uniform system of government for the towns. 
This system was based on the idea that the burgesses of a 
town have a right to manage their own affairs. Henceforth the 
towns of England, Scotland, and Ireland were democratic in 
character. 

Health Laws. — A third great measure concerned the public 
health of England. The first great public health act was not 
passed until 1848, when a general board was created. This 
board, acting through local boards, looked after sewage, drainage, 
water supply, burial grounds, and offensive and dangerous trades. 
The system was much changed afterward, and it was not until 
1875 that the great Public Health Act of to-day was passed. It 
is difficult for us to realize how neglectful people had been in 
the earlier period of the most ordinary precautions against 
disease and epidemics. Eilth, pollution, and contamination 
everywhere abounded, but the health acts were to make Eng- 
land a cleaner and healthier country. 

368. Other Reforms. — Many other reforms were carried out, 
often through the agitation of private individuals. Greatest 
of these, from a humanitarian point of view, was the abolition 
of the slave trade. In 1807 the slave trade had been done 
away with in the British colonies, and in 1833 the whole 
system, as far as Great Britain was concerned, was abolished. 
The government appropriated £20,000,000 to compensate slave 
owners for their losses, and allowed them, in the way of service, 
three-fourths of the slave's time for twelve years. About the 
same time the earl of Shaftesbury began his great work in be- 
half of better treatment for lunatics, of workers in mills and 
factories, mines and collieries, especially women and children, 
and of the improvement of the dwellings of the poor. A dozen 
important acts of parliament represent the endeavors of this 
great philanthropist during a period of nearly sixty years to im- 
prove the physical and moral condition of the people of England. 



1836] OTHER RErORMS. 373 

Others labored in the same cause. An attempt was made 
to encourage education ; prisons and asylums were improved ; 
whipping posts and pillories were abolished ; the postal service 




Queen Victoria at the Time of hek Coronation. 
Erom a portrait — painter unknown — in Westminster Abbey. 

was simplified and extended ; postage stamps were introduced 
in 1840, and postage was reduced to a penny (English), that 
is, two cents. In 1836 the stamp duty on newspapers was 
lowered ; in 1855 it was got rid of altogether, and in consequence 



374 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



[1846 



the circulation of newspapers increased enormously, and many- 
new papers were established, 

369. Queen Victoria. — When William IV died in 1837, the 
next heir to the throne was his niece, Victoria, the eighteen year 
old daughter of the duke of Kent. To her long reign of nearly 
sixty-four years has been fitly given the name of the Victorian 
Era. It was a period of transition, during which G-reat Britain 
and the British Empire of to-day were created. That Great 
Britain was able to pass through this great period of her 
history without serious disturbance is in no small degree 
due to Queen Victoria. Trained and guided during her 
early years by the Whig minister, Lord Melbourne, and after- 
ward (1840-1861) aided and advised by her husband, Albert 
of Saxe-Coburg, the prince consort, she developed a remarkable 
knowledge of the principles and practices of constitutional 
government, and displayed a rare judgment in the exercise of 
the royal prerogatives. With the accession of Victoria, Han- 
over was separated from the crown and given to the youngest 
son of George III, and Great Britain withdrew more and more 
from Continental affairs. 

370. Cabinet Government under Victoria. — The Whigs under 
Lord Melbourne were in power when Victoria came to the 
throne and in the main, the Whigs, or Liberals, remained the 
leading party until 1874. In 1846 the Conservative party 
divided on the free trade question ; the protectionist wing, or 
old Conservatives, were led by Derby and Disraeli, and the 
free trade, or liberal. Conservatives by Gladstone. This break 
in the Conservative ranks strengthened the Liberal party.* 



1 Summary of ministers under Victoria: 



Peel . 


. Conservative 


Russell . 


. Liberal 


Derby . 


. Conservative 


Aberdeen 


. Liberal 


Palmerston . 


. Liberal 


Derby-Disraeli 


. Conservative 


Palmerston . 


. Liberal 


Russell 


. Liberal 



1841-1846 

1847-1852 

1852 

1853-1855 

1855-1858 

1858-1859 

1859-1865 

1865-1866 



1837J THE CHAETIST MOVEMENT. 375 

After 1841 cabinet and parliamentary government became 
firmly established. The queen gave up all right of appointing 
ministries and always selected the man who could command a 
majority in the House of Commons. She demanded, however, 
that her ministers keep her fully informed of aH that was 
being done, and that they should not change a measure after 
it had received the royal sanction. The rise of the prime 
minister within the cabinet gave unity to the entire cabinet, 
which. thenceforth was invariably selected from one party and 
always resigned as a whole when the majority was against it. 
When supported by a majority in the House of Commons, the 
ministry wielded practically absolute power, and the prime 
minister was the head of the government.^ 

371. The Chartist Movement. — The Radicals deemed the re- 
form of 1832 only a stepping stone to universal suffrage, but 
the leaders of the Liberals had no intention of extending further 
the right to vote. When the Radicals found that the govern- 
ment would do nothing for them, they began a series of demon- 
strations, known as the Chartist movement, because those 
engaged in it presented their claims in the form of a charter. 
The movement began in 1837, when the House of Commons, 
by a vote of five hundred to twenty-two, refused to consider 
further electoral reforms. The Radicals, in alliance with the 
workingmen who believed that an extension of the right to vote 
would relieve their misery, organized meetings, and presented 
to parliament a great petition, which embodied their demands. 

This charter demanded the following six points: (1) uni- 
versal suffrage ; (2) secret ballot ; (3) pay for representatives ; 

Disraeli (1866-1868, 1875-1880) and Gladstone (1869-1874, 1880-1885), alternat- 
ing; Gladstone (January-July, 1886, 1892-1894), Rosebery (1894-1895), and 
Salisbury (1885-1886, 1886-1892, 1895-1902), alternating. 

1 The last attempt of the crown to resist the will of the cabinet was in 1839, 
when Victoria, acting on the advice of Melbourne, refused to change the ladies 
of the bedchamber to suit the complexion of the new Peel ministry. There- 
fore Peel refused to continue in office. When, in 1841, the Whigs again suf- 
fered defeat and Peel formed a new ministry, the queen yielded the point and 
the ladies of the bedchamber were selected from Conservative families. 



376 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



[1838 



(4) abolition of property qualifications ; (5) annual elections •, 
and (6) better distribution of parliamentary seats throughout 
the country. Three times (1839, 1842, and 1848) were petitions 
drawn up, signed by thousands of people, and presented to 
parliament amid great excitement. But the Chartists did not 

form a society, or 
create an organiza- 
tion of any kind, 
and the movement 
came to nothing, for 
the great mass of 
the English people 
were not ready for 
the changes that 
the Radicals de- 
manded. 

372. Free Trade in 
Wheat. — Back of 
the Chartist move- 
ment lay the discon- 
tent of the working 
classes, who saw in 
the protective sys- 
tem the reason why 
prices were high. " 
They wanted the re- 
peal of customs 
duties, notably that 
on corn (wheat), 
which made bread dear. To the same end worked a group of 
men composing the free trade party, led by Richard Cobden, a 
Manchester cotton merchant, and John Bright, and in 1838 
this party won over to their cause Peel, prime minister and the 
head of the Conservatives. Peel yielded, believing that both the 
poverty in England and the famine in Ireland could be traced 
to the system of protection. 




Sir Robert Peel. 

From Robinson's engraving after the 
portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence in 
the National Portrait Gallery, London. 



1849] PEACE AND PROSPERITY. 377 

In 1842 Peel abolished all remaining export duties, and re- 
duced import duties on seven hundred and fifty articles con- 
sumed in Great Britain. He made up the loss in revenue by 
reestablishing the tax on all incomes of £150 and over. In 
the same year, turning his attention to the Corn (wheat) Laws, 
he forced his party to reduce the duty on wheat by an arrange- 
ment known as the "sliding scale" — that is, that the duty 
should ■ increase when the price of home wheat fell and de- 
crease when it rose. In 1845 the Whig, Lord John Eussell, 
announced his conversion to free trade in wheat, and Peel, with 
the aid of the Whigs, passed in 1846 a measure repealing the 
Corn Laws, thus giving England free trade in wheat. This was 
the time when Gladstone and other free traders left the Con- 
servative party, giving added strength to the Liberals. 

373. Struggle for Home Rule in Ireland. — The third great 
issue of the early years of Queen Victoria's reign was that of 
the Irish, who wished a parliament separate from that of Great 
Britain. The leader of the movement was Daniel O'Connell, 
who thrilled his countrymen with promises of a parliament 
for Ireland. The movement reached its height in 1843. A 
" Young Ireland " party was formed, and enormous mass- 
meetings were held, where angry and seditious words were 
spoken. But O'Connell, though a demagogue, was not a law- 
breaker ; and when the government forbade the Irish to bear 
arms and ordered their meetings to disburse, he yielded, and 
declared that he would not lead an Irish revolt. This de- 
termination hurt his cause with the Irish. From that time his 
power over his people began to decline, and in 1846 the whole 
Irish movement collapsed. For nearly twenty years the Irish 
people remained quiet, suffering hunger and poverty, and con- 
stantly liable to eviction at the hands of absentee landlords. 

374. Peace and Prosperity. — • In 1851 England seemed at the 
height of peace and prosperity. Free trade had been extended 
by the repeal of the Navigation Acts in 1849; material pros- 
perity had been promoted by a rapid increase in commerce; 
pauperism had been checked by the new Poor Laws ; drunken- 



378 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [1853 

ness had been diminislied by the efforts of the total abstinence 
societies, the sanitary condition of the towns improved by the 
public health measures, and crime lessened by the establish- 
ment of a better police system. A spiritual awakening had 
followed a series of new religious movements, of which the 
Tractarian, or Oxford movement, was the most important. 
Literature took a practical turn: Macaulay defended the rule 
of the middle-class Whigs, in his History of England ; Grote 
glorified the cause of democracy, in his History of Greece; 
Dickens, in Pickwick Papers, and Thackeray, in Vanity Fair, 
portrayed vividly the life of the upper and lower classes of 
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ; while Carlyle, in 
Sartor Resartus, and Tennyson, in In Memoriam, struck a new 
note of sincerity, duty, and justice. A great industrial exhi- 
bition promoted by the prince consort in 1851 seemed to in- 
augurate an era of peaceful commercial intercourse with all the 
world. 

But the era of peace had not yet come. In 1848 another 
revolution in France ended in the establishment of the second 
French Republic and stirred up the discontented masses in 
Italy, Austria, and Prussia to revolt and demand constitutions. 
The Continent was stirred to its very depths. Some years 
later came wars in Germany, Italy, and the United States, to 
establish or maintain national unity, a problem which Great 
Britain had solved peacefully for herself. 

375. The Eastern Question: the Crimean War. — In 1850 the 
Greek and Roman Catholic churches quarrelled over the con- 
trol of certain sacred places in the Holy Land. The Czar, as 
the head of the Greek church, took up the cause of the Greek 
Christians, and Louis Napoleon, president of the new French 
Republic, championed the cause of the Roman Catholics. The 
Czar demanded of the Sultan the right to act as the protector 
of all the Greek Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Great 
Britain suspected that the Czar's purpose was to divide Turkey 
among the powers, in order that he himself might seize Con- 
stantinople. When, therefore, in 1853 Czar Nicholas declared 



1855J THE EASTERN QUESTION: THE CRIMEAN WAR. 379 

war against Turkey, sent troops into her territory, and destroyed 
a Turkish fleet in the Black Sea (November 4), the British 
people rose in wrath and indignation and demanded war 
against Russia. 

The chief reason for this demand was the belief that if Rus- 
sia seized Constantinople, the British route to India would be 
cut off, and India threatened with attack. Louis Napoleon, 
crowned Napoleon III, emperor of the French in 1852, also 
wanted the glory of a successful war to make himself more 
popular with his new subjects. British suspicion and hatred 
of Russia forced the English prime minister, Aberdeen, against 
his will to join with Napoleon in a declaration of war, March, 
1854. Troops were despatched to the Dardanelles; and in 
September, 1854, the Crimean War was begun. This great 
duel, between Russia on one side, and England, France, Turkey, 
and eventually Sardinia on the other, lasted for a year. 

After the bloody victory of the Alma and two indecisive 
battles (Balaklava ^ and InJcerman), the allies settled down to 
the siege of Sevastopol, the great Russian fortress (December, 
1854). The winter of 1854 and 1855 was one of misery, suffer- 
ing, and death for British and French soldiers alike, due to in- 
sufficient food, bad housing, epidemics, and poor hospital 
service.^ In England popular wrath at the inefficiency of the 
government drove Aberdeen from the ministry (1855). His 
successor, Palmerston, pushed the war with vigor, and finally, 
after careful preparations and many assaults, Sevastopol was 
taken, on September 5, 1855. The British people, having made 
their preparations for a continuation of the war, were loath to 
bring the struggle to a close ; but the other powers were tired 
of the conflict and believed that Russia had suffered enough. 



1 Special report : The Charge of the Light Brigade. 

2 It was in the Crimean War that Florence Nightingale began her work as 
an army nurse, which resulted in the widespread " Red Cross " movement, the 
improvement of hospital conditions, and the establishment of a training school 
for nurses. " The Angel of the Crimea," as Miss Nightingale was called, died 
in England, August, 1910. 



380 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [185' 

In January, 1856, peace was agreed upon ; and in April, at the 
Congress of Paris, the final treaty was signed. 

The diplomats at Paris declared the Ottoman Empire a 
European power in good standing, and pledged themselves to 
maintain its integrity; this was really a victory for Great 
Britain as it prevented further encroachments upon Turkey by 
Russia. 

376. India : the Great Mutiny. — Had the route to India 
really been threatened by the Czar, the war might well have 
been worth what it cost ; for India was rapidly becoming one 
of Great Britain's greatest possessions. Since the days of 
Wellesley (duke of Wellington) the conquest of India had 
gone steadily on. The marquis of Hastings extended the 
powers of the East India Company and brought to an end the 
wars with the native tribes. In 1813 the company's monopoly 
of the Indian trade was taken away, and in 1833, when its 
charter was renewed, the monopoly of trade with China was 
abolished. This new arrangement limited the business of the 
company to matters of administration and greatly improved its 
rule. 

But the governor-general, Lord Dalhousie, in 1849 unfortu- 
nately began to annex vassal states, forcing upon them British 
methods of administration and law without regard to native 
customs and prejudices. In consequence there was a wide- 
spread discontent, which needed only a direct and special 
grievance to break into open revolt. The introduction of a 
cartridge greased, as was believed, with cow's or pig's fat was 
interpreted as an attempt of the British to deprive the native 
soldiers of their caste. In using (biting) the cartridge, Mo- 
hammedans, to whom swine were unholy, deemed themselves 
defiled ; and Hindoos, to whom the cow was sacred, thought 
themselves guilty of sacrilege. 

In 1857 the Sepoy ^ regiments of Calcutta and Delhi muti- 
nied, and soon most of northern India was in revolt. British 

1 Sepoys are natives with some regular army training. 



18671 THE COLONIAL PROBLEM. 381 

officers were shot, women and children massacred, and barracks 
and quarters destroyed. The slaughter of Cawnpore (1857) 
was only the worst of many tragedies. The siege of Delhi 
(1857), the defence and relief of Lucknow (1857), the second 
capture of Lucknow, and the final defeat of the rebels 
(June, 1858) were the chief events in a great struggle which, 
after the mutiny was suppressed, led parliament to abolish 
the East India Company, and to take India under the control 
of the British government. 

377. Relations with China. — The East India Company had 
extended its trade to the country on the borders of India and 
in this way came into conflict with China. With increase of 
trade went increase of smuggling, particularly in opium, the 
importation of which into China was rigidly forbidden. At- 
tempts of Chinese officials to enforce this regulation gradually 
brought on the Opium War of 1839-1842. This war was 
dishonorable to Great Britain from any point of view, but it 
brought about the overthrow of China's policy of isolation. 
The treaty of Nanking (1842) threw open five Chinese ports 
to British trade and ceded Hongkong to Great Britain, and 
thus gave the British a foothold in China long before other 
nations had thought of concerning themselves with affairs in 
the Pacific. A second treaty (1860), after another war, opened 
additional ports to the British. About the same time Japan, 
as a result of the United States naval expedition, 1852, began 
to admit the commerce of a few nations to her ports, and in so 
doing created a new market for British goods. 

378. The Colonial Problem. — At the same time the British 
colonies in the west and south were claiming England's 
attention. Canada and the West Indies, oldest of the colonies 
remaining to Great Britain in America, had both suffered from 
bad management. But now responsible government and colo- 
nial control of expenditures were granted to the Canadians. 
This new policy culminated in the creation of modern Canada 
by the Act of 1867, which joined all the Canadian provinces 
except Newfoundland into the single " Dominion of Canada," 



382 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [1880 

with a single constitution for all. In the West Indies the 
emancipation of the slaves, and the introduction of free trade 
destroying the West Indian monopoly of British trade had 
aroused resentment, which in Jamaica took the form of protest 
in 1836 and of revolt in 1865. 

The colonies in Africa and the Pacific were deemed at 
first by British statesmen useless and expensive possessions. 
Australia had been employed as a convenient place for trans- 
porting criminals ; but when systematic colonization began, 
about 1830, in Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, and The 
Cape, questions of convicts, squatters, land sales, emigrants, 
and the relations with natives engaged the attention of parlia- 
ment. Government in these distant lands was at first largely 
military, and when a regular civil administration was intro- 
duced, everything was managed from the government offices in 
Downing Street, London. 

This policy gave way, soon after 1830, to another, based on 
the Whig doctrine of letting the colonies alone. Statesmen 
began to advocate the plan of granting to the colonies respon- 
sible government, with the right to manage their own affairs 
and to conduct their own military defence. The reorganization 
of Canada in 1840 was in the main an application of the " let 
alone " policy. The introduction of representative institutions 
in Australia began in 1842, and was carried forward by a great 
constitutional act in 1850. New Zealand received attention 
in 1846 and again in 1851. Many British statesmen thought 
these measures meant eventual separation of the colonies from 
the mother country ; but others, with more foresight, believed 
that colonial self-government was not inconsistent with loyal 
attachment to Great Britain. This faith was to find ample 
justification later, when, after 1880, the idea of a union of 
mother country and colonies in a great federal empire began 
to take hold of men's thoughts and to shape the policy of the 
government. 

379. Relations with the United States : the Trent Affair. — The 
Civil War in America stirred the British people deeply, and the 



1861] NEW PAKTIES AND NEW ISSUES. 383 

opinions and sympathies of statesmen and people were much 
divided. In the main, the upper classes and government offi- 
cials, even Gladstone, upheld the cause of the South, while the 
working classes and radical leaders were almost to a man in 
sympathy with the North. This sympathy was the more re- 
markable in that the Northern blockade of Southern ports 
brought on a cotton famine in Lancashire that caused terrible 
distress among the employees of the cotton mills, and affected 
workmen in other trades, also. Their attitude, due to abhor- 
rence of slavery, without doubt influenced the government to 
preserve strict neutrality. But through gross carelessness of 
the ministry England violated this neutrality in allowing the 
Confederate government to fit out in English ports cruisers to 
prey upon the commerce of the North. For this indiscretion 
England was compelled in a court of arbitration (1871) to pay 
$15,000,000 to the United States. 

England refused to join with Napoleon III in recognizing 
the Southern states, but came very near going to war in what 
is known as ''the Trent Affair." Captain Wilkes of the 
United States Navy stopped an English mail steamer, the 
Trent, and took off two Southerners, who were going to Europe 
to seek aid for the Southern cause. Great Britain, on the 
ground that the right to search neutral vessels in time of war 
had been given up by the European powers at the Congress of 
Paris, in 1856, demanded the surrender of the commissioners. 
The United States had not been represented at the Congress 
of Paris, but President Lincoln declared that the United 
States had always opposed the right of search ; Queen Victoria 
and the prince consort threw their influence on the side of peace ; 
the commissioners were surrendered and the danger was past. 

380. New Parties and New Issues. — Meanwhile in England 
the material condition of the working classes had been im- 
proving; and they had not only begun to band together in 
trade unions and federations, but were holding congresses to 
discuss questions relating to themselves and their welfare. 
They saw that their first efforts must be directed to the great 



384 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



[1865 



task of obtaining the right to vote. As long, however, as 
Palmerston lived and the old Liberals were in control, little 
was to be expected. 

After Palmerston's death in 1865, a new Liberal party began 
to come to the front. This party, whose leader was Gladstone, 
adopted in part the doctrines of the Radicals and began to 
advocate a wider suffrage and new legislation for the improve- 
ment of the masses. The cry was " peace, retrenchment, and 
reform." With the new liberalism went a new conservatism, 
the chief exponent of which was Disraeli, afterward earl 

of Beaconsfield. The 
members of the new Con- 
servative party believed 
in government for the 
people rather than by the 
people. They believed in 
a moderate extension of 
the suffrage, but held 
that legislative power 
should be in the hands of 
educated and wealthy 
men. Their leading ar- 
ticles of political faith 
were a firm foreign policy, 
an extension of British 
territory in all parts of 
the world, and a federa- 
tion of all the colonies in 
a great British empire. 
This policy differed from 
that of the Liberals in 
that it entailed not peace, 
but war; not retrench- 
ment, but heavy expenditures on army and navy; not legis- 
lation shaped only for the United Kingdom, but legislation 
for the greater Britain at home and beyond the seas. 




From a photo graph. 
Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield. 



1868] GLADSTONE'S FIRST REFORM MINISTRY. 385 

381. The Second Reform Bill. — As both parties favored some 
extension of tiie franchise, the Russell-Gladstone ministry in 
1866 brought in a reform bill, but it was defeated by a party 
of old Liberals, who opposed electoral reform. The Derby- 
Disraeli ministry that followed introduced another bill, because 
it desired to show the working classes that, after all, the Con- 
servatives were their best friends. This measure, after many 
amendments, was passed in August, 1867. 

This Eef orm Bill of 1867 granted a suffrage that was far from 
universal. In the boroughs it gave the right to vote to all 
householders instead of, as formerly, only to those who oc- 
cupied houses worth £10 a year. It also allowed all lodgers 
to vote who had resided for a year in the borough and occupied 
rooms renting for at least £10 a year unfurnished. The only 
change that was made in the counties was the reduction of the 
property qualification from £10 to £5 and the introduction 
of a new " occupation qualification," which allowed a man to 
vote who had occupied for twelve months a house that v/as 
valued at £12 a year. This meant that all inhabitants of 
boroughs could vote and that a large number of small farmers 
in the counties could do the same. The increase nearly 
doubled the number of voters and destroyed the supremacy of 
the middle classes. It led to a more definite organization of 
the older parties, to increased political activity of the socialists 
and the trade unions, and to the election of a few workingmen 
to the House of Commons. Though miners and agricultural 
laborers were still denied the right to vote, England, by the act 
of 1867, took a. long step in the direction of a popular franchise. 

382. Gladstone's First Reform Ministry. — In 1868 parlia- 
ment was dissolved and new elections were held under the re- 
form act of 1867. New voters appeared, elections were 
contested as they never had been before, and electors scanned 
carefully the legislative programmes of the two parties. The 
new Liberals — Liberals and Radicals — won by a majority of 
one hundred and twenty, and Gladstone at once formed a min- 
istry committed to an important programme of reform. 

2c 



386 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



[1870 



The first measures that were introduced concerned Ireland. 
In July, 1869, parliament passed a bill disestablishing the 
Irish state church (that is, the Anglican). In May, 1870, it 
passed an Irish land bill, to protect tenants from eviction as 
long as they paid their rents and to compel landlords to com- 
pensate evicted tenants for improvements made. The bill also 




From a photograph. 
Hawarden Castle, the Home of Gladstone. 

provided for government loans for the purchase of tenancies, 
the loan to be paid back to the government by the tenant in 
annual instalments. 

The most important measure resulting from the act of 1867 
concerned a national control of elementary education. A bill 
was passed, August 9, 1870, dividing England into school 
districts and providing for a system of public elementary 
schools in the districts. It created school boards to be elected 
in the towns by the burgesses and in the counties by the rate- 
payers, and thus placed educational control on a democratic 
basis under a central authority. After 1§70 England had two 



1871] GLADSTONE'S FIRST REFORM MINISTRY. 387 

systems of elementary schools: (1) voluntary schools, aided 
partly by the government and partly by voluntary subscrip- 
tions, teaching in most cases some religious creed; and 
(2) public schools, which children between five and twelve 
were obliged to attend, supported partly by local taxation 
and partly by the government, and free for those unable to 
pay, commonly known as board schools.^ Henceforth the 
board schools tended to gain at the expense of the voluntary 
schools. A new education act regulating the control of these 
schools was passed in 1902 ; but an attempt in 1906 to ex- 
tend the non-sectarian board system was defeated largely 
through the opposition of the Anglicans and Roman Catholics. 
In higher education an important change was made. In 1871 
the universities of Oxford and Cambridge were thrown open 
to Roman Catholics and Dissenters alike by the abolition of 
all religious tests. 

Then two important changes were made in the army. First, 
the system of purchasing commissions in the army was abol- 
ished, and promotion was made dependent not on rank, but 
on merit and industry. Secondly, the long term service of 
twenty-five years was replaced by a short term service, 
whereby a man after serving at least six years actively in 
the army was to pass into the reserve, though he was liable at 
any time during a succeeding six years to be called to the 
front. 

In 1871, in order to conciliate the working classes, Gladstone 
put through a measure incorporating trade unions and legaliz- 
ing strikes, but forbidding all acts of intimidation. But Glad- 
stone was trying to do too much, and each measure alienated 
some part of the British people. . A licensing act angered the 
liquor dealers ; the array reform aroused the Conservatives ; 
the elementary education act incensed the Non-conformists ; 

1 In England the term " public school " is given to such great endowed 
schools as Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester, Westminster, St. Paul'Si 
Charterhouse, and Shrewsbury. The public schoolin England is, therefore, a 
private school. 



388 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



[1874 



the Irish land laws embittered the landlords; and the trade 
unions act failed to satisfy the workingmen. In 1873 the 
ministry resigned, and when the new elections of 1874 were 
held, the Conservatives were victorious, with a majority of 
fifty. Disraeli became prime minister and Derby minister 
of foreign affairs. For the first time since 1841 the Conserva- 




From a photograph. 



The Suez Canal. 



This canal was begun in 1859 by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the Erench 
engineer who later began the Panama Canal. It was finished in 
1869. In 1875 England became the largest stockholder through the 
purchase by Lord Beaconsfield of Egypt's shares. It is open to all 
ships of all nations on equal terms. 

tives controlled in the House of Commons a majority upon 
which they could rely. 

383. Disraeli's Imperial Policy : the Indian Empire. — Glad- 
stone had cared but little for affairs abroad, and had rigidly 
kept free from all foreign entanglements. The new ministry 



1877] THE CONGEESS OF BEELIN. 389 

interested itself to a certain extent in legislation for the 
benefit of the working classes, but in the main was content 
with the inauguration of a brilliant foreign policy. Disraeli 
was interested in India, and he determined to make that 
possession, in a new and vivid sense, an appanage of the 
crown. 

The Suez Canal had been opened in 1869, and in order to 
control it, Disraeli, in 1875, purchased, for £4,000,000, the 
shares belonging to the Khedive of Egypt. The same year 
he despatched the Prince of Wales to India, ostensibly to 
hunt tigers, but in reality to awaken a new enthusiasm for 
Great Britain, and to build up a closer connection between 
Great Britain and India. The next year Disraeli pusheii 
through parliament a measure called the Royal Titles Bill 
conferring on the British sovereign the title of Emperor oi 
Empress of India. The climax of this policy came when, 
in a great meeting at Delhi, the old capital of the Mongols, 
January 1, 1877, in the presence of a great concourse of sover- 
eigns, Indian nobles and potentates, ambassadors and soldiers. 
Queen Victoria was formally proclaimed Empress of India. 

In dealing with India a strict regard was shown for all the 
native Indian customs and prejudices, and every effort was 
made to arouse the enthusiasm of the Indian peoples for 
Great Britain. Natives were employed on the same footing 
with Englishmen in the departments of police, finance, and 
justice ; local councils were created, liberty of the press was 
allowed, and later an Indian national congress, composed of 
high-caste Brahmins, was permitted to meet to propose and 
discuss reforms in administration. 

384. The Congress of Berlin. — In 1877 Eussia declared war 
against Turkey because of Turkey's atrocious treatment of 
the Bulgarians. Public opinion in England, roused by Glad- 
stone's speeches, forced Disraeli to remain neutral, though 
he was suspicious of Eussia's designs and was ready to take 
up arms should Eussia seize Constantinople. Eussian successes 
ended the war, but unfortunately the Eussian envoy obtained 



390 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [1880 

a treaty which practically dismembered the Ottoman Empire 
and left the Sultan with little territory in Europe. Imme- 
diately Great Britain and Austria declared that they would 
not accept the treaty, and demanded that it be submitted 
for revision to a general congress of the European powers. 
The Czar yielded and in June, 1878, the congress met at 
Berlin. There Disraeli and Salisbury carried on a diplomatic 
war with the Eussian representative and came of£ victorious 
on nearly every point. Turkey was left in possession of 
the main part of her territory, though Servia, Rumania, and 
Montenegro were declared independent, and Bulgaria, though 
remaining under Turkish authority, was given powers of self- 
government. Great Britain obtained the right to occupy 
Cyprus. Disraeli returned to England, " bearing peace with 
honor." But the treaty of Berlin really accomplished little 
for the solution of the Eastern question. 

385. Disraeli's Fall. — In 1878 the old rivalry between 
Russia and Great Britain brought on a war for the control 
of Afghanistan. This struggle ended in the placing of. Ab- 
durrahman, a friend of England, on the throne as ameer 
of Afghanistan. Meanwhile, in South Africa the discovery 
of the diamond fields of Kimberly led England to annex 
West Griqualand in 1878 and the Transvaal the same year. 
But on undertaking the subjugation of the neighboring Zulus, 
she met with an unexpectedly stubborn resistance and not 
until 1879 was the war successfully completed. 

This imperial policy of Disraeli not only proved expensive, 
but savored somewhat of ostentation. It led to the neglect of 
home interest, to half-hearted measures of reform, and to wide- 
spread discontent in England. When, therefore, the general 
elections of 1880 were held, the Conservatives were driven 
from power, and the Liberals, with a parliamentary majority 
of one hundred, returned to office. 

386. Trouble in Ireland. — In this second Gladstone minis- 
try appeared for the first time two members of the Radical 
party — Joseph Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke. Equally 



1884] THE THIRD REFORM BILL. 391 

significant was the appearance in the House of Commons of 
eighty Irish members, under the leadership of Charles Stewart 
Parnell, an able but unscrupulous champion of the Irish cause. 
Other leaders in Ireland organized the Irish National Land 
League (1879), for the purpose of obtaining, if possible, a re- 
form of the Irish land system. The League encouraged the 
employment of all legitimate methods to injure the landlords. 
Among them was the " boycott," used for the first time against 
Captain Boycott, an English agent, who had served notices on 
certain tenants in County Mayo. But the followers of the 
League did not always show self-control, and the burning of 
farms, mutilation of cattle, and other depredations culminated 
in May, 1882, in the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish, the 
newly appointed secretary for Ireland. This gave a severe 
setback to the Irish cause. 

387. The Third Reform Bill (1884). —During this excite- 
ment in Ireland Gladstone redeemed a former promise to 
extend the British franchise and to grant the counties the 
same privileges that had been given in 1867 to the towns. 
The agricultural and mining laborers were making themselves 
felt and were banding together to improve their condition. 
A measure was passed in February, 1884, giving to both towns 
and counties a uniform electoral privilege, so that from that 
time nearly every one in England has had a vote for members of 
parliament except domestic servants, bachelors living with their 
parents, certain persons who by frequent change of residence 
are unable to establish the voting privilege, and women. 
The last named can, however, vote in local elections. Aliens, 
infants, idiots, paupers, convicts, and persons guilty of corrupt 
practices at elections can not vote and, naturally, peers are not 
allowed to vote for members of the House of Commons. 

In 1885 a new and very important redistribution of seats in 
parliament was made, whereby England was divided into 
electoral districts, each returning one member. A borough 
with only 15,000 inhabitants voted with the county, boroughs 
with more inhabitants returned one or more members accord- 



392 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [1880 

ing to size, but each member stood not for the borough, but 
for each electoral district of the borough. Thus for electoral 
purposes the distinction between the borough and the county- 
ceased to exist. There were a few exceptions to this rule 
based on historical privilege. By this act of distribution the 
membership in parliament was increased from 658 to 670. 
With the growth of population since 1885 inequalities have 
developed, and to-day Ireland is over-represented (1 to 44,000) 
and England under-represented (1 to 70,000). Some of the 
electoral districts are now much more thickly inhabited than 
others, yet each sends up but one member. 

The results of the act of 1884 were almost revolutionary. 
It changed the working of the English system of government. 
Parliament tended to become little more than a debating 
and voting body ; the cabinet initiated the great legislative 
measures and defined the policy of the government. Members 
of parliament rarely introduced bills of their own. But the 
cabinet soon ceased to consider itself responsible to parlia- 
ment only ; it looked henceforth to the country for its au- 
thority, and if the sentiment of the country were manifestly 
against it, it resigned, even though it still commanded a 
majority in parliament. In nearly every case after 1884 the 
cabinet resigned with a majority in its favor in parliament. 
Thus in England to-day the cabinet is the supreme executive 
and legislative power, and the electorate is the sovereign 
authority. England, despite its monarchy and nobility, is a 
democratic country. 

388. Troubles in Afghanistan, South Africa, and Egypt. — 
Gladstone was not interested in affairs abroad. In 1880 he 
had withdrawn the British garrisons from Kabul and Kan- 
dahar in Afghanistan. In December of the same year the 
Boers struck for independence, and defeated the British 
forces at Langs Nek and Majuba Hill. Then the British 
government made treaties giving Great Britain control over 
foreign affairs and leaving the Boers free to manage internal 
affairs in their own way. 



1886] DEFEAT OF HOME EULE FOR IRELAND. 393 

Equally unsuccessful were Great Britain's dealings with 
Egypt. When the Khedive became bankrupt in 1878, a dual 
control by Great Britain and France was established. The 
disorganized condition of Egypt encouraged revolt, and the 
provinces of the Sudan attempted to throw olf the rule of the 
Khedive. At their head appeared one Mohammed Achmed, 
claiming to be the Mahdi, or Guide, the representative of 
Allah on earth. The revolt soon assumed vast proportions, 
and two armies sent against the Mahdi's followers in 1883 
were in large part destroyed. Then the Gladstone ministry 
despatched General Gordon to Khartum to deal with the 
Mahdi, but Gordon was surrounded at Khartum by the 
Sudanese. Gladstone after a dangerous delay was shamed 
into action by public opinion, and sent a relief expedition 
under General Wilson, which arrived too late. Khartum had 
fallen, Gordon had been slain a few days before (January 26, 
1885), and the Sudan was lost to the Khedive. 

389. Defeat of Home Rule for Ireland. — In 1885 the elections 
under the new law (Third Eeform Bill) resulted in a victory 
for the Liberals, and Gladstone became prime minister for the 
third time. The presence of eighty-six Irish Home Rulers in 
parliament made it evident that if Gladstone were to command 
a majority, he must advocate measures favorable to home rule. 
On April 8, 1886, he brought in his first Home Eule Bill. By 
it he proposed to give Ireland a separate parliament, a separate 
ministry, and control of taxes. The two countries were to have 
the same king, and the British parliament was to have a certain 
control over Irish law-making and Irish revenues ; but other- 
wise Ireland was to be independent of England. The measure 
aroused great opposition, and was defeated in June, 1886. 
Unfortunately for the Liberals, this first attempt to grant home 
rule to Ireland led a body of able men, among them Joseph 
Chamberlain and John Bright, to withdraw from the Liberal 
party. These men formed a new group, the Liberal Unionists, 
so called because, while adhering to Liberal principles, they 
desired union with Ireland. In 1886, when new elections took 



394 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [1888 

place, the Liberals were defeated, and Lord Salisbury became 
prime minister. 

390. Reforms in the Irish Land System and in Local Govern- 
ment. — The second Salisbury ministry endeavored to conciliate 
Ireland by reducing rents and by appropriating money to enable 
tenants to buy their lands. A permanent land commission was 
appointed, and many tenants made application for loans from 
the government. This policy was followed by a marked 
decrease in crime and a falling off of emigration, showing that 
Ireland was becoming more prosperous and contented. It is 
noteworthy that before twenty years had passed, the population 
of Ireland had begun to show an increase. But the demand 
for home rule remained just as persistent as ever. 

After the passage of the Third Reform Bill, it was evident 
that such changes must be made in county and parish govern- 
ment as would accord with the new democratic tendencies in 
England. A representative democracy was now the basis of 
England's central government ; it must become the basis of 
England's local government, also. Four evils existed : (1) county 
and parish control was in the hands of the justices of the peace, 
the landed gentry, and was not representative government at 
all ; (2) local administration was exceedingly complicated and 
confused, for besides the county and the parish there was the 
poor law union, the school district, highway district, burial dis- 
trict, and other divisions, of which the boundaries rarely agreed ; 
(3) the administration was as complicated as the area, there 
were many local boards, with different powers, different times 
and methods of election, different system of voting, and 
different qualification of candidates ; and (4) there was a 
great variety of local rates or taxes, most annoying to 
the local ratepayer. The result was chaos in local govern- 
ment. 

The first measure introduced in 1888 by the Salisbury gov- 
ernment reformed the county government. The justices of the 
peace were deprived of all powers of administration, which 
were vested in county councils, composed of representatives 



1893] THE SECOND HOME RULE BILL. ' 395 

chosen directly by tlie taxpayers.^ A complete change was 
made in the method of paying local rates. In 1889 the system 
was extended to Scotland. 

In 1894 the parishes were taken in hand by the Liberal 
party, and a measure was passed equally important with that 
relating to the counties. The powers of the local squire were 
transferred to a parish council selected by the ratepayers which 
administered the affairs of the locality. Two important 
features of these reforms may be noted : they took the selection 
of the local governing boards from the hands of the crown and 
placed it in the hands of the ratepayers ; and they got rid of 
the local aristocracy or country gentlemen as far as local ad- 
ministration was concerned. Though further reforms are still 
to be made, yet in municipalities, counties, and parishes local 
government to-day is well organized on a democratic basis. 
With the exception of the hereditary House of Lords (which 
is likely in time to become a representative body), of the City 
of London (still governed according to old forms and prece- 
dents), and of the local justices of the peace (still possessing cer- 
tain judicial functions, which will probably be taken from them 
eventually), class rule has ceased to exist in England. 

391. The Second Home Rule Bill (1893). — After the Conserv- 
atives had held power for six years, Lord Salisbury decided to 
appeal to the country in a new election. The elections resulted 
in a Liberal majority of forty, but a majority wholly dependent 
on Irish votes. Gladstone had made home rule and the im- 
provement of the condition of labor his chief issues before the 
electors, and true to his promise he presented on February 13, 
1893, his second home rule measure. He demanded for Ire- 
laud a legislature of two houses, with power to make laws, and 
an executive, like a colonial governor. The home rule of this 
measure was somewhat less extensive than that provided for 
in 1886. In the House of Commons the debate continued for 



1 London (except the " city ") became a county for administrative purposes 
and was placed under the London County Council. 



396 ' THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [1900 

three months, and the opposition did all in its power to pre- 
vent the passage of the bill. The bill was finally carried by a 
majority of thirty-four; but the House of Lords, feeling that 
so small a majority, entirely made up of Irish votes, hardly 
represented the wishes of the British people, defeated the bill 
by a large majority. 

The Liberals were disheartened. During their three years 
of power they had failed to deal effectively with any of the 
great social problems. They had wasted time on the home 
rule question, and the promises of their earlier programmes had 
not been fulfilled. In the election of 1895 they suffered heavy 
defeat, and the Conservatives obtained a majority greater than 
at any other time in their history. Even without the Liberal 
Unionists, who, since 1886, had been their ardent allies, they 
would have had full control of the House of Commons. 

The Liberal party gradually went to pieces. The with- 
drawal of the Liberal Unionists had deprived them of some 
of their ablest members ; Gladstone had retired (d. 1898) ; 
and their Irish allies were estranged by the failure of. the home 
rule policy. Between 1895 and the general elections of 1900 
one Liberal leader after another came to the front : Lord 
Kosebery, Sir William Harcourt, Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman ; 
but before 1900 the party itself seemed completely demoral- 
ized. On the other hand, the Conservative party never 
seemed stronger or more united, and never better able to 
carry out its policy with efficiency and despatch than in the 
year 1900. 

392. Industrial and Social Reform. — The Conservative min- 
istry was made up of Conservatives and Liberal Unionists, 
and remained firmly intrenched in office for five years. The 
new government gave its attention to the demands of the in- 
dustrial and agricultural classes, and tried to bring about 
social reform. It concerned itself with hours of labor, but 
was unsuccessful i^. carrying an eight-hour law for miners. 
It passed an employer's liability law which increased the 
workingman's opportunity of enforcing claims against em- 



1886] 



EEA OF AEBITRATION. 



897 



ployers; a pure food law to prevent adulteration of drugs and 
foods ; it tried to prevent explosions in mines, and to enable 




From a photograph. 
Houses of Parliament, Ottawa, Canada. 

occupiers of small dwellings to purchase their homes. It sup- 
plemented the land purchase act for Ireland, and created a de- 
partment of agriculture for that country; it extended the 
government's ownership of telegraphs and telephones ; and, in 
other ways, increased the government's control of public con- 
veniences. But it must not be supposed that these legislative 
activities were confined to the Conservatives only. All gov- 
ernments since 1868 had been regulating private activities and 
extending the authority of the state in matters relating to the 
welfare of the masses. 

393. Era of Arbitration. — Since 1885 other European coun- 
tries, notably Germany and France, had been increasing their 
commerce and adding to their colonies. Wherever there were 



398 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [1903 

opportunities for a market, a sphere of influence, or an addi- 
tion of territory, in Africa, in Asia, or in the islands of the 
Pacific, there such powers as Great Britain, Germany, France, 
and Russia were disputing, generally peacefully, for posses- 
sion. Germany, Austria, and Italy were united in a triple 
alliance, and France and Russia in a dual alliance, for mutual 
support and the preservation of peace. Great Britain stood 
alone, the rival of all, yet on peaceful terms with all. 

At the same time diplomacy underwent a change. Foreign 
relations were no longer limited to the European Continent. 
After 1885 foreign ministers were interested not only in ques- 
tions concerning dynasties and treaties, but in colonial boun- 
daries, spheres of influence, rights of possession, trade routes 
and markets, tariffs and tariff treaties. In the great majority 
of cases negotiation, agreement, arbitration, and compromise 
were substituted for wars. When Great Britain and France 
became involved in disputes that seemed to threaten war, com- 
mon sense prevailed, and the troubles were settled peacefully. 
In 1895 a controversy arose between Great Britain and the 
United States over the question of the boundary between Brit- 
ish Guiana and Venezuela, but Lord Salisbury consented to 
submit the matter to arbitration. Great Britain, Germany, 
and the United States referred a dispute regarding the Samoan 
Islands to King Oscar of Sweden, who, in 1902, rendered a de- 
cision which all received without demurring. 

In 1898 a conference was summoned at The Hague which 
established an international tribunal of arbitration to which 
cases of dispute might be referred. This tribunal had its first 
case in 1902, when it was called upon to settle a dispute be- 
tween Mexico and the United States. Again, in 1903, Great 
Britain, Germany, and Venezuela agreed to put into its hands 
a serious difficulty regarding Venezuela's indebtedness to the 
first two powers. An important step was taken in 1903 and 
1904 when Great Britain and France by treaty agreed to refer 
disputes of a judicial nature, and Holland and Denmark dis- 
putes of any kind whatever, to this tribunal at The Hague. 



1883] THE AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION. 399 

In 1909 an important dispute between France and Germany- 
was decided by the tribunal, and in 1910 the long-standing 
disagreement between Great Britain and the United States re- 
garding the Newfoundland fisheries was brought before the court 
and the decision was accepted by both parties without demur. 

In 1900 when the Boxer uprising in China roused the atten- 
tion of the civilized world, the powers, with a harmony rarely 
if ever exhibited before, suppressed the murderous revolt ; and 
in the conference that followed from August, 1900, to Septem- 
ber, 1901, settled amicably the intricate and difficult questions 
involved. 

394. Great Britain in Egypt. — The recovery of the Sudan 
in upper Egypt was begun in 1896, when General Kitchener 
gradually pushed southward toward Khartum. On April 
8, 1898, was fought the battle of the Athara; on Septem- 
ber 2, that of Omdurman. By these two British victories the 
power of the dervishes was broken and the Sudan restored to 
Egypt. On January 5, 1899, was laid the corner-stone of the 
Gordon Memorial College at Khartum ; and a few weeks after- 
ward a convention was signed with Egypt, giving Great Britain 
control in the equatorial region south of the 22° of north lati- 
tude. In March the boundary between the French and British 
spheres of influence was defined, and the last cause of difficulty 
of that kind seemed to be removed. Great Britain had long 
ago promised to withdraw from Egypt, but had stayed despite 
the protests of France and Turkey. Though breaking her 
pledged word, she has without doubt contributed to the mate- 
rial and moral improvement of the people of Egypt, and the 
necessity of her " veiled protectorate " over Egypt has grad- 
ually been recognized. In an Anglo-French agreement of 1904 
France accepted the existing situation, and only Turkey, whose 
suzerainty over Egypt was merely nominal, and the national 
party in Egypt, which wanted home rule for the Egyptians, 
remained to protest. 

395. The Australian Federation. — A movement looking to the 
federation of the colonies in Australia began as early as 1883 



400 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [1895 

But union was difficult to effect. Finally, in 1899, a federal 
constitution was adopted by all the colonies including Tasmania, 
and in July, 1900, this constitution was accepted by the British 
parliament, thus creating the federal commonwealth of Aus- 
tralia, under the crown of the United Kingdom of Great Brit- 
ain and Ireland. The opening of the first federal parliament 
at Melbourne in 1901 began a new era in this part of the British 
world. The most important questions in Australia concerned 
labor, revenue, the tariff, commerce, and industry. There was 
no nobility and no state church, and education was widely dis- 
tributed. Until 1908 Great Britain supplied naval defence, 
but at that time measures were taken looking to the establish- 
ment of a small local navy and militia. 

396. The Boer War. — Equally noteworthy was the rapid ad- 
vance of the British in South Africa. Since the founding of 
the German colonies by Bismarck in 1884 and the discovery of 
gold in the Transvaal in 1886, British interest in the interior 
lands of southern Africa had vastly increased. During the 
years that followed, British colonists had pushed northward 
into the land afterward called Rhodesia. By 1896 British 
territory in South Africa comprised Cape Colony, Rhodesia, 
British Central Africa or northern Rhodesia, and Nyassalandj 
Telegraph lines were carried through the new territory, and a 
railroad, the " Cape to Cairo " line, was planned to connect in 
Uganda with the Egyptian road already built as far south as 
Khartum. This rapid advance of the British cut off the Boer 
states from the interior ; and, in consequence of a special ar- 
rangement made by Great Britain with Portugal, who possessed 
Mozambique, they were also cut off from the sea. 

By the treaty of 1884 (p. 392) the British suzerainty over the 
Boers had been restricted to foreign relations, but the discovery of 
gold brought so many immigrants into the Transvaal that Johan- 
nesburg became a city not of Boers but of foreigners. Discon- 
tent soon arose, owing to the narrow policy of the Boers, and 
in 1895, a conspiracy known as the " Jameson raid " was 
formed for the overthrow of the Boer government. This un- 



1910] SOUTH AFRICAN UNION. 401 

fortunate attempt greatly injured the cause of the foreigners, 
and threw power into the hands of the reactionary party of the 
Boers, whose leader was President Kruger. From 1896 to 
1899 relations between Great Britain and the Transvaal be- 
came more and more strained, until finally, in October, 1899, 
Kruger issued an ultimatum, which brought on war. 

The Boer war lasted from October, 1899, to the summer of 
1902. The British were at first repulsed, and in the battles of 
Stormberg (December 10), Magersfontein (December 11), and 
Colenso (December 15) were badly defeated. In January, 
1900, Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener took the command, and 
during that year, notwithstanding the heroic defence of the 
Boers, occupied both republics and proclaimed their annexa- 
tion to Great Britain. Public sympathy, though divided, was 
largely with the Boers, and under De Wet, Botha, and Delarey 
they fought on, inflicting great losses, until, on May 31, 1902, 
a treaty of peace was signed and on June 16 the last Boer 
company laid down its arms. The war redounded to the glory 
of the Boers, who showed themselves to be brave men and 
skilful strategists. It showed Lord Kitchener to be not only 
a fighter, but a shrewd and tactful administrator. By the 
terms of peace the Boers lost their independence, but received 
concessions that were designed to transform them into loyal 
British subjects. The war brought all the South African 
states under British sovereignty and so prepared the way for 
their union. 

397. South African Union. — Full government was granted to 
the conquered . Boer communities in 1905, but attempts to 
settle important economic problems showed the necessity 
of erecting a single state. Finally in 1908-1909 a constitution 
was drafted and was accepted by the British parliament in Sep- 
tember, 1909. By this constitution The Cape, the Transvaal, 
the Orange River colony, and Natal were merged in a single 
state with a single parliament possessing supreme power. It 
was an important event in the history of South Africa, where 
in 1910 the first Union parliament was opened at Cape Town. 
2d 



402 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY [1901 

398, The Colonies in General, — The colonies and the other 
dependencies of Great Britain are treated in full under the 
government of the British Empire, § 445, page 473, 




Queen Victoria Late in Life. 

399. Death of Queen Victoria, — On January 22, 1901, Queen 
Victoria died at the advanced age of eighty-two years. Her 
death aroused sincere and widespread grief. She had reigned 
nearly sixty-four years, during which time she had seen greater 
changes in the conditions of human life than had any other 
sovereign before her day. Between 1837 and 1901 the mate- 
rial, political, and social life of England, and of Continental 
Europe, also, had undergone a great transformation. During 



1900] THE VICTORIAN ERA. 403 

these years Victoria had won not only the love and devotion 
of her subjects and the respect and veneration of the outside world 
for her nobility of life and character, but also the admiration 
of statesmen for her sanity of judgment and honorable conduct 
in politics and diplomacy. 

400. The Victorian Era. — The story of Queen Victoria's 
reign is the story of the greater part of the nineteenth century 
and of the great changes which were effected in that century 




From a photograph. 
Houses op Parliament, London. 

in every western state. In all the years since the accession of 
William III no such progress had been made in every condi- 
tion of life and government as from 1837 to 1901, the period 
when Queen Victoria reigned. During those years the British 
Empire was established, and British interests were extended 
all over the world. Population in England doubled, and in many 
of the colonies it increased twenty-five times. Wealth more 
than trebled, and trade grew to six times its former volume. 
In 1900 it could be said that " one square mile in every four 
in the world was under the British flag, and at least one person 
out of every five persons alive was a subject of the queen." 



404 THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. [1837 

More noteworthy than the increase in size and numbers were 
the advances made in the administration of government, the 
dispensing of justice, and the alteration in the general condi- 
tion and welfare of the people as a whole. From 1832 to 
1901 there was scarcely a phase of the older system that was 
not either reformed or transformed. The principle of repre- 
sentation, the membership of the House of Commons, the right 
to vote, the administration of the finances, the navy, the 
army, and the militia, the organization of the law courts and 
the exercise of justice, the methods of government both central 
and local, the policy toward education, health, the poor, the 
factory system, police, the postal service, and the other features 
of the nation's life which concern the daily experiences of a 
people, — all were altered for the better. Many of these im- 
provements we have noted already ; a few need to be stated 
briefly here. 

The greatest reform was the taking out of the hands of the 
privileged and propertied classes, the nobility and the local 
gentry, the control of administration and justice. Voting be- 
came free, representation fairly distributed, great officers were 
held as often by commoners as by peers, local affairs were con- 
trolled by elective officials, law was administered by trained 
lawyers, positions in the army and navy depended on merit and 
ability, and education began to pass out of the hands of reli- 
gious bodies. 

In material conditions immense progress was made. Indus- 
try and invention were mainly responsible for the improve- 
ments in production and transportation. The first railways 
were opened, and the first steamships built during the preced- 
ing reigns, but it was not until the Victorian period that they 
became important factors in transportation. Before 1837 Ed- 
inburgh was more remote from London than New York is to- 
day; a trip to Australia or India was a matter of months. 
Until the introduction of the telegraph and telephone news was 
slow to arrive, and information could be sent no faster than 
individuals could travel. Railways, steamships, telegraphs, 



1837-1900] 



THE VICTORIAN ERA. 



405 



cables, and telephones all came into use during Queen Vic- 
toria's reign. 

The development of steam navigation and the great im- 
provements made in the mechanical uses of steam and electric- 
ity led to a great increase in the number and size of merchant 
vessels and the consequent extension of trade. The rapid 
growth of the steel industry, the manufacture of armor plate, 
the invention of quick firing guns and of machine guns, and the 




A Village Street, Lacock. 



From a photograph. 



introduction of scores of ingenious labor-saving devices trans- 
formed the building and running of war-ships and made possi- 
ble the modern navy. With the changes in the construction of 
merchant ships and men of war went great improvements in 
matters of navigation, and of the discipline and training of 
seamen. Life on board ship was transformed, flogging in the 
navy was abolished, and drinking greatly diminished. 

In industry mechanical invention cheapened the cost of pro- 



406 



THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 



[1837-1900 



duction and increased a hundred-fold the variety of articles 
manufactured. Though the factory system had inj urious effects 
upon the employees and led to serious problems in the relations 
between capital and labor, efforts to ameliorate the condition 
of the laboring classes were to a large extent successful. Ques- 
tions of hours of labor, housing of employees, safety appliances, 
wages, pensions, and the like were met and in part answered, 

and attempts to pro- 
vide technical educa- 
tion for the laboring 
classes were in a meas- 
ure successful. 

Agriculture, which 
had made consider- 
able progress in the 
eighteenth century, 
improved less than 
did manufactures in 
the Victorian period. 
As rapid transporta- 
tion brought the farm- 
ers of England into 
competition with 
other countries, agri- 
culture became less 
profitable, and people 
migrated from the 
rural districts to the 
cities. Though im- 
provements in farm- 
ing methods continued 
to be made, the amount of area under cultivation decreased 
and efforts to bring new land into use ceased. Dairy farming, 
on the other hand, showed a steady advance. 

During the early part of the nineteenth century the attitude 
of the government toward industry and agriculture was to let 




From a photograph. 
Edward VII. 



1901] EDWAED VII. 407 

men alone to run their business as they saw fit and not to in- 
terfere. But this policy led to so much abuse and unjust treat- 
ment of factory employees, workers in mines, and agricultural 
laborers, that about the middle of the century the government 
began in the face of great opposition to extend its control. At 
first this control took the form of factory legislation regarding , 
hours of labor, the employment of women and children, the 
condition of the buildings, and the health of the workers. 
Legislation for mines followed, and gradually one interest after 
another was taken up. Toward the end of the century efforts 
were made to increase the number of small farmers by allowing 
the use of small allotments of untilled land for poor families. 
This system of allotments, or small holdings for the landless 
poor, proved very successful. Similar government interest in 
the welfare of the working classes was seen in laws requiring 
towns to remedy conditions unfavorable to health, providing 
for better dwellings for the poor, and establishing in every 
post office — itself under government control — savings banks 
for people of small means. By the end of the century the 
earlier policy was completely reversed, and the government was 
taking a very active part in controlling and regulating industry 
and labor. 

401. Edward VII. — Queen Victoria was succeeded by her 
eldest son, the Prince of Wales, who ascended the throne as 
Edward VII. In his coronation oath, he expressed his full 
determination to rule " as a constitutional sovereign in the 
strictest sense of the word " ; and " to work," he said, " as 
long as there is breath in my body, for the good and ameliora- 
tion of my people." On August 9, 1902, he was crowned King 
of Great Britain and Ireland, Emperor of India, and Sovereign 
of the Dominions beyond the Seas. On January 1, 1903, at a 
durbar held in Delhi, he was formally proclaimed Emperor of 
India. He proved a strong and able ruler, popular with all 
classes of Englishmen and highly respected throughout the 
world for his efforts in behalf of peace. 



^ 



408 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1906 

Though King Edward had no aptitude for diplomatic nego- 
tiation and no love of political intrigue, his urbanity and social 
tact, his fondness for entertainment and friendly conversation, 
and his whole-souled interest in the happiness of others and 
the general welfare of mankind had an appreciable effect 
upon England's foreign relations and often paved the way 
for important diplomatic agreements that in the eyes of many 
seemed to be parts of a definite foreign policy. 

402. Foreign Relations. — The war with the Boers in South 
Africa had aroused among the people of Europe and America 
a deep feeling of bitterness and distrust toward England. But 
the terms of the treaty of peace of 1902, and still more the 
granting of responsible government to the conquered Boer 
states in 1906, did much to allay this animosity, and during 
King Edward's reign the British government entered into 
agreements with three foreign powers that were to be of the 
greatest importance. 

In January, 1902, an understanding (entente) was reached with 
Japan, according to which either power was to remain neutral 
in case the other were attacked. This understanding was 
changed to an offensive and defensive alliance in 1905. 

On April 8, 1904, an understanding was reached with France, 
which brought to an end a long series of quarrels in various 
parts of the world. By this understanding France was to 
uphold England's rights in Egypt and England was to sup- 
port those of France in Morocco, and thus between the two 
powers a position of alliance and friendship was established, 
known henceforth as the entente cordiale, and destined to be 
of momentous consequence in the history of Europe. 

Three years later, largely because of Germany's intrigues in 
Turkey and Persia, a similar understanding was reached with 
Russia, which settled all misunderstandings between the two 
countries relating to Thibet, Afghanistan, and Persia. If to 
these agreements be added the continuance of eminently cordial 
relations with Portugal and Italy, friendly powers of long stand- 



1910] THE CORONATION OF GEORGE V. 409 

ing, it is possible to comprehend how different a position Eng- 
land occupied at the end of King Edward's reign from that 
which she held at the beginning. Within these nine years she 
had recovered from the ill-will created by the Boer War and 
had become a leading power in European affairs. 

Only with Germany were her relations unfriendly. German 
statesmen saw in King Edward's visits and in the various 
alliances and agreements of the period a series of acts inimical 
to Germany's prestige. They believed that Great Britain was 
deliberately attempting to detach Italy from the Triple Alliance 
of Germany, Austria, and Italy, which had been formed in 
1882 ; to build up a coalition of powers, from which Germany 
was to be excluded ; and to draw around Germany a circle of 
hostile states that would act together in order to block what 
Germany deemed her legitimate ambitions and to endanger her 
very existence as a world power. 

403. The Coronation of George V. The Durbar. — On 
May 6, 1910, King Edward died, to the consternation and grief 
of his people. In his short reign of nine years he had proved 
himself a wise ruler and a strong constitutional king, who left 
England stronger than he found it. He was succeeded by his 
son, the Prince of Wales, who took the title of George V, and 
with his consort. Princess Mary, was crowned at Westminster 
Abbey, June 22, 1911. Six months later they sailed for India, 
where at the great coronation durbar ^ held at Delhi, amidst 
enthusiastic demonstrations of loyalty and scenes of great 
splendor, they were crowned emperor and empress of India. 

This event was noteworthy in British history. For the first 
time a king of England had set foot on the soil of India and for 
the first time a British sovereign had presided over his own 
imperial coronation. In the king-emperor's message to his 

1 Durbar or DarMr, in Hindustani, means a court or royal council, or a 
solemn assemblage in which the ruler gives public audience. There have 
been three great Durbars, one in 1877, one in 1903, and one in 1911, the 
last the only one presided over by the sovereign in person. 



410 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1910 



Indian people announcement was made of the transfer of the 
seat of Indian government from Calcutta to the ancient capital, 
Delhi, a change not only geographical, that is, from the extreme 
east to the very center of the Indian Empire, but one also that 
marked the beginning of a new policy of increased self-govern- 
ment and responsibility for the Indian provinces and of greater 




King George V and Queen Mary at the Durbar, 
Delhi, India. 

independence for the native feudatory states. Before leaving 
for India King George invested the heir apparent, at Carnarvon 
Castle, July 13, 1911, with the title of Prince of Wales, a title 
that is not held of right or succession but renewed only at the 
sovereign's pleasure. The investiture was a brilliant spectacular 
display, following in all details the ancient ceremonial. 

404. The Mending of the House of Lords. — Toward the end 
of King Edward's reign a serious constitutional difficulty arose. 
Of the two chief parties in parliament, the Liberals, who had 



1910] THE CORONATION OF GEORGE V. 411 

just been returned to power, were composed of about one fifth 
of the House of Lords, the Liberal members of the House of 
Commons, and the Labor and Irish members, while the Unionists 
included four fifths of the House of Lords, the Conservative 
members of the House of Commons, and those former Liberals, 
called Liberal Unionists, who opposed Irish home rule. Thus 
the House of Lords, being hereditary in character, was a 
permanently conservative body, not subject to change at the 
will of the electors. When the Liberals were in power, trouble 
was bound to arise, because the Lords were sure to vote down 
some of their most important measures, as was the case with 
the Irish Home Rule Bill in 1893. But when the conservatives 
were in control, no such trouble was likely to ensue, for the Lords 
naturally supported the Conservative program in all its parts. 
Therefore the Liberals declared that the House of Lords was a 
partisan body which did not respond to the wishes of the electo- 
rate and ought to be ended or mended. 

During the period of Liberal control after 1906 the issue 
was revived under more favorable conditions and in 1909 David 
Lloyd George introduced a budget which increased the tax on 
incomes and inheritances, revived the old tax on land, and im- 
posed a new tax on increased land values. These taxes fell 
most heavily on the great landholders and though the measure 
was passed by the House of Commons it was thrown out by 
the House of Lords, in order to compel parliament to dissolve 
and to place the issue squarely before the electors at a general 
election. 

Many conflicting influences clouded the main issues, the 
budget and the House of Lords, and resulted in an election 
that was very disappointing to the Liberals. The latter 
gained but two seats more than the Unionists, 275 to 273, 
while the Irish Nationalists had 82 members and the Laborites 
40. But with the aid of the Irish votes the Liberals again 
passed the budget and this time the Lords accepted it and it 
became law. True to their program the Liberal leaders, with 



412 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [19H 




The Stream of Parliamentary Majorities, 1832-1910. 
Adapted from the London Graphic. 



1911] A WAVE OF REFORM MEASURES. 413 

Asquith as prime minister, took up the issue of the upper house, 
determined to take away from that body in the future all power 
to reject a money bill or to reject any bill that the House of 
Commons persisted in passing. 

On May 15, 1911, the new measure introduced by the Liberal 
government was passed by the House of Commons and imme- 
diately sent up to the House of Lords. What would the peers 
do? Would they accept the bill curtailing their legislative 
powers or would they reject or amend it? Intense excitement 
reigned throughout the country. Wide differences of opinion 
existed as to the wisest policy to pursue, and a small number of 
Unionist peers, known as the ' Die Hards/ wished to fight to 
the last ditch for the defeat of the bill. 

But saner councils prevailed. Thirty-seven Unionist peers, 
opposed to the bill, but wishing to prevent the creation of 500 
' mushroom ' members of the House of Lords, voted with the 
Liberals and the bill was carried on August 10, by a majority 
of 17. It received the royal assent eight days later. By this 
law, officially known as the Parliament Act, the House of Lords 
was deprived of all power to amend or reject a money bill 
passed by the House of Commons, and in case it rejected any 
other bill, the House of Commons by passing the bill in three 
successive sessions, whether of the same parliament or not, 
could send it to the king for his assent, without regard to the 
attitude of the upper house. As the king never refused his 
assent to a bill passed by parliament, this meant that the House 
of Commons had become in fact the sole law-making body of 
the kingdom. Thus was effected the most important change 
in the parliamentary system of England that had taken place 
since 1832. 

405. A Wave of Reform Measures. — The Liberal party, 
dependent as it was for its majority in parliament upon the 
votes of the Irish and Labor members, was bound to place the 
latter's demands at the very forefront of its legislative pro- 
gram. These demands included Irish home rule, a more direct 



414 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1911 



representation of labor in the House of Commons, and laws 
promoting the general welfare of the laboring masses. Along 
with these went a widespread agitation for an extension of 
the suffrage, the granting to women of the right to vote for 
members of parliament, the abolition of plural voting, and such 
a redistribution of seats as would meet the shifting of population 

which had been going on 
since 1885, when the last 
distribution of seats had 
taken place. According to 
total population England 
should have had 47 more 
members, Wales one more, 
Scotland 4 less, and Ire- 
land 44 less. This was 
an unfair situation and 
should be remedied. 

With Asquith, prime 
minister, Lloyd George, 
chancellor of the ex- 
chequer, Sir Edward Grey, 
foreign secretary, and R. 
McKenna, home secre- 
tary, the Liberal ministry 
went ahead with its pro- 
gram, certain at last that 
the House of Lords could not interfere to block its plans. On 
the very day of the passage of the Parliament Act by the House 
of Lords a resolution was adopted by the House of Commons, 
authorizing the payment of £400 ($2000) a year to each mem- 
ber of the house, thus enabling men of moderate means or of 
no means at all to stand for election, knowing that if elected 
they would receive payment for their services. Hitherto the 
expenses of labor members had been met by the labor organiza- 
tions. This was but preliminary to a greater measure to come. 




Herbert Henry Asquith. 



1914] A WAVE OF REFORM MEASURES. 415 

In 1912 a Franchise Electoral Reform Bill was introduced, 
granting the vote to every adult male who had resided in his 
district for six months. 

No sooner were the terms known to the world outside par- 
liament and it was seen that woman's suffrage was left out of 
the bill than an agitation was begun by the militant suffragettes 
of the most violent character. Property was attacked and 
destroyed, buildings were set on fire, and the ministry was 
harassed in every way known to woman's fertile mind. Though 
parliament had been favorable to the principle of woman's 
voting, the cabinet had been divided, and Asquith had regularly 
refused to bring in a special bill for the purpose, but now he 
agreed to accept an amendment to the Reform Bill. When, 
however, the speaker of the House ruled that such an amendment 
so altered the character of the bill as to require that it be in- 
troduced over again the government abandoned the measure. 
For a time the militant suffragettes continued their attacks, but 
with the outbreak of the war in 1914, they temporarily buried 
the hatchet, and loyally labored in behalf of their country. 

In the meantime the government had adopted a system of 
pensions payable to every man and woman over the age of 
seventy possessing a yearly income of less than $150 a year. 
The number thus benefited soon exceeded a million persons at a 
cost to the country of more than $50,000,000. On September 
14, 1914, after long discussion, it finally passed the bill for the 
disestablishment of the English Church in Wales. 

More important still, on the same day a new Irish Home Rule 
Bill, after having been twice rejected by the House of Lords, was 
passed for the third time by the House of Commons and with 
the king's assent became a law. This act provided for a single 
Irish parliament, though leaving the six counties of Ulster 
outside for six years, at the end of which time they were to 
become subordinate to the parliament. But, owing to the war, 
its operation was suspended and eventually it was replaced by a 
new Home Rule Bill in 1920. 



416 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1914 



406. The Situation in Ireland. The Easter Rebellion. — 
After a century of agitation and two attempts by the Liberal 

party to meet the wishes 
of the Irish Nationahsts, 
a grant of home rule had 
been definitely conceded to 
Ireland. The new meas- 
ure gave to that country 
not responsible gov- 
ernment but self-govern- 
ment within the Empire, 
somewhat similar to the 
self-government already 
possessed by twenty-eight 
other parts of the British 
world, and it satisfied the 
Irish National party, of 
which John Redmond was 
the leader. " I say to the 
government," said Red- 
mond, in a grateful ex- 
pression of thanks for the 
Home Rule Bill, "that they may to-morrow withdraw every 
one of their troops from Ireland. I say that the coast of Ire- 
land will be defended from foreign invasion by her armed sons, 
and for this purpose armed Nationalist Catholics in the south 
will be only too glad to join arms with the armed Protestant 
Ulstermen in the north." ^ 




John Edward Redmond. 



^ Redmond's words found fulfilment when on Flanders field united Irish 
divisions — the sixteenth (Irish) and the thirty-sixth (Ulster) — marched 
side by side to victory at Wytschaete ridge, June 7-10, 1917. By an irony 
of tragedy, Redmond's younger brother, Major William Redmond, met his 
death in this battle at the head of his troops. Redmond himself, em- 
bittered and broken-hearted because of the failure of the cause for which 
he had labored so long, died the following March at the age of 67. Al- 
together nearly 50,000 Irishmen born were killed in the war. 



1914] THE EASTER REBELLION. 417 

But Redmond had reckoned without adequate appreciation 
of two powerful forces in Ireland itself that were destined to 
wreck the cause of home rule, — a cause for which he had labored 
so long. The first was the Protestant population of Ulster 
county in the north, which outnumbered the Roman Catholics 
of Ulster by a third and largely controlled the industries and 
manufactures of the province, and the other the radical 
Irish element, hardly known outside of Ireland before the war 
began, divided into parties, which though differing among 
themselves had one common aim — complete separation from 
the Empire. Of these radical groups, the Sinn Feiners ^ 
were the most conspicuous, and in popular comment their 
name was given to the whole radical or independent 
movement. 

Thus there were in Ireland three irreconcilable points of view : 
that of the Irish Nationalists who supported home rule ; that 
of the Ulsterites who, convinced that under home rule their 
religion would be destroyed and their industries ruined, wished 
to remain as they were ; and that of the Sinn Feiners and 
other extremists who wanted an independent Irish republic. 
For the moment the Irish Nationalists, with more than 
eighty members in the House of Commons, had won in the 
passage of the Home Rule Bill, but hardly had the bill been 
introduced in 1912 when Ulster, led by Sir Edward Carson, 
began a revolt which lasted until the outbreak of the war. 

For a year the Irish question was completely overshadowed 
and almost forgotten. Nationalists and Ulsterites offered 
themselves for war service, though in relatively small numbers, 
and Ireland appeared to be peaceful. But a new power was 
already at work, which had as its motto the freedom of Ire- 
land. The movement culminated in two bloody events. On 
April 21, 1916, Sir Roger Casement was caught landing on the 
coast of Ireland from a disguised German cruiser and in August 

1 Pronounced Shin Faners. Sinn Fein means "Ourselves," that is to say, 
"Ireland for the Irish." 



418 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACi^, AND EMPIRE. [1918 

was hanged for treason; and at the same time (April 24- 
May 3, 1916) a radical revolt was begun in Dublin and soon 
assumed the form of an armed insurrection. The post office 
and other buildings were seized and an Irish Republic pro- 
claimed. But after hard fighting and the proclamation of 
martial law, the rebellion was suppressed, and fifteen of the 
leaders executed, among them the president of the ' Republic,' 
Padraic Pearse. 

407. The Reform Bill of 1918. — Though the outbreak of 
the war seemed for the moment to postpone indefinitely all 
prospect of electoral reform, the result as it turned out was 
exactly the opposite. The magnificent response which the men 
of Great Britain made to the call for volunteers, the life in the 
training camps and the trenches in France, and the democratic 
spirit aroused by the vast number of men in the service ended 
all controversy upon the subject and met all objections to the 
extension of the suffrage to every adult male in the British 
Isles. 

More remarkable still was the change effected by the war in 
the position of women. Their noble response to every demand 
made upon them, their work in the munition factories, the hos- 
pitals, and the field, their exhibition of willingness to bear every 
burden, no matter how heavy or disagreeable, and their ability 
to perform tasks commonly deemed within the power of men 
only led to a great revulsion of feeling in their favor. 

As compared with the agitation which had accompanied the 
passage of previous reform bills, that of 1918 aroused no excite- 
ment whatever. Its chief terms were decided upon in a com- 
mittee or conference of both houses, whose report was accepted 
by parliament with but few changes, and embodied in a bill 
known as the Representation of the People Bill. 

This bill became law in April, 1918. Its provisions were as 
simple as those of previous reform acts were complicated. Any 
male of the age of 21 and any female of the age of 30 (a woman 
had to be a tenant or owner, a local elector or the wife of a 



1918] ELECTIONS OP 1918. 419 

local elector), who had resided for six months in any single 
place, could vote. Thus, except for the age limit and the ex- 
clusion of women who were merely lodgers, no difference was 
made Between the franchise of a man and that of a woman. 
The total number of voters was increased from about 8,000,000 
to more than 21,000,000, of whom 8,479,156 were women. 
Thus for the first time in her history Great Britain was converted 
into a genuine democracy. 

In the matter of the redistribution of seats which, as we have 
seen, had become grossly unfair, far-reaching changes were 
made. To establish equality of representation one seat was 
allowed for every 70,000 of the population in Great Britain and 
every 43,000 in Ireland. The membership of the House of 
Commons was increased from 670 to 707, and of the 37 seats 
thus added England received 31, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland 
two each. Thus except in the case of Ireland, where representa- 
tion in the future will depend on the settlement of the Irish 
question, every vote is equal to every other vote. Though 
" proportional representation," that is, the representation of the 
minority, was defeated, we can say that under the new law the 
House of Commons was destined to become for the first time 
a democratic and representative body. 

408. Elections of 1918. — The Liberal ministry under As- 
quith continued in office until November, 1916, when the exi- 
gencies of war demanded the suspension of party government 
and the establishment of a coalition ministry, composed of 
Liberals and Unionists with one Labor member. This ministry 
remained in control until November, 1917, when owing to the 
hostile criticism of Lord Northcliffe, proprietor of the London 
Times, and other leaders of public opinion, a further reorgani- 
zation of a drastic character took place. 

Asquith gave way to Lloyd George as prime minister, and 
instead of a large cabinet of 23 members there was instituted a 
small War Cabinet or " steering committee " of five members — 
Lloyd George (Liberal), Curzon (Unionist leader of the House 



420 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1918 



of Lords), Bonar Law (Unionist leader of the House of Com- 
mons), Milner (Unionist), Henderson (Labor, replaced later 
by Barnes), with General Smuts, the South African leader, 
invited to attend. In addition to the cabinet was the ministry, 
to which nine new members were added, concerned with labor, 

shipping, munitions, air, 
national service and re- 
cruiting, blockade, pen- 
sions, reconstruction, and 
food, each of whom was 
freed from all matters of 
public policy and limited 
in his duties strictly to 
the business of administra- 
tion. Under this reorgan- 
ized government the war 
was carried to a success- 
ful conclusion. 

After the war was over, 
demands for a general 
election became insistent, 
chiefly on the ground that 
by the- addition to the 
electorate of so many 
millions of new electors, 
men and women, the 
House of Commons had ceased to be a representative body. 
Considerable criticism was made of the Coalition government, 
particularly of its failure to deal boldly with the tariff question 
and to put into operation the Home Rule Act, which had only 
been suspended until the war was over. So general was this 
demand for a new expression of public opinion that the govern- 
ment yielded, parliament was dissolved, and new elections were 
held on December 14, 1918. 

The results of these elections, though not unexpected, were 




David Lloyd George. 



1918] • NEW CONDITIONS AND PROBLEMS. 421 

remarkable for the completeness of the Coalition victory. The 
Coalition Unionists secured 328 seats and the Coalition Liberals 
133, which with the election of 11 other members favorable to the 
Coalition made a total Coalition vote of 472. The non- 
Coalition forces secured but 235, — Labor 65, Unionist 24, 
Asquith Liberals 35, Irish Unionists 25, Irish Sinn Feiners 73, 
and scattering 17. As the Sinn Feiners refused, to take their 
seats, the non-Coalitionists could command but 182 votes. 

Next to the large Coalition majority, the outstanding features 
of the election were the number of Labor members elected and 
their definite refusal to support the government, the disruption 
and temporary disappearance of the Liberals as a party, and 
the success of the Sinn Feiners, who in winning so large a number 
of seats from the Irish Nationalists not only showed the effect 
of the Easter executions upon the Irish people but also the 
repudiation of home rule by the Irish electors. In the Sinn 
Fein group was a woman, Countess Markievicz, but as she 
with her fellow Sinn Feiners refused to attend, the honor of 
being the first woman member of the House of Commons fell 
to the Viscountess Astor, an American by birth, who the next 
year, at a by-election, was returned from Plymouth. 

409. New Conditions and Problems. — The first parliament 
under the Reform Act of 1918 met on February 4, 1919, and in 
the October following, the War Cabinet was retired and a new 
cabinet of twenty members took its place, thus marking a return 
to former parliamentary methods. The situation had many 
peculiar aspects. The government, though largely Con- 
servative, at least from the point of view of numbers, was led 
by a prime minister, Lloyd George, who was radical and im- 
perial, and was supported by 133 Liberal members of similar 
views. The opposition, always in the past provided by the 
party possessing the largest numbers, should have been led 
by the Sinn Feiners, but as they remained away, because they 
wished to have nothing to do with the British government, 
it was controlled by the Labor members, who, dependent as 



422 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1920 

they were on the trade unions and hmited in their outlook by 
devotion to class needs, were unable to rise to the demands of 
a great parliamentary opposition and to present a large and 
statesmanlike policy. In 1920 the future of party govern- 
ment in England was very uncertain. 

410. The Irish Situation, 1920. — Since the suspension of the 
Home Rule Act of 1914, the Irish problem had grown increas- 
ingly complex. From 1916 to 1918 the movement for in- 
dependence gained enormously in strength and in the elections 
of December of the latter year the Nationalist party was swept 
aside and the advocates of an independent Ireland came into 
almost complete control. By vote of seventy per cent of Ire- 
land's elected representatives a republic was established, with 
Eamon de Valera as its president, and was accepted by a great 
majority of the locally elected bodies. Thus in 1919 and 1920 
Sinn Fein was in control, setting up its own courts — the de- 
cisions of which were enforced — and exercising both executive 
and administrative functions. 

Though the British government declared that it would never 
allow the claim for an independent Ireland, the Sinn Feiners 
went ahead with their republican organization, and estab- 
lished both a ministry and a parliament {Dail Eireann). At 
the same time, unhappily, certain eleinents entered upon a 
species of guerilla warfare against representatives of British 
authority, murdering, with little attempt at concealment, 
policemen, constables (Royal Irish Constabulary), soldiers, and 
government officials, burning barracks, robbing mails, looting 
schoolhouses and churches, raiding private dwellings, and 
assaulting private individuals. Great Britain on her side sent 
troops into Ireland (more than 60,000), placed the country 
under military rule, imprisoned dozens of Irish offenders, and 
suppressed a score of Irish newspapers. In 1920 parliament 
authorized coercion by passing a law and order act (Restoration 
of Order in Ireland Act, August 9), the most important part of 
which was the substitution for the civil courts of courts mar- 



1920] THE IRISH SITUATION, 1920. 423 

tial conducted according to the procedure of the common law. 
In the same year, Lloyd George presented his solution of the 
problem in the form of a new Home Rule Bill, which, if passed, 
was designed to take the place of the suspended Asquith Act 
of 1914. 

But many, both in England and Ireland, who did not Hke the 
Lloyd George plan and yet believed an independent Ireland 
impossible, advocated a compromise on the basis of Dominion 
Home Rule, according to which Ireland would be given the 
status of a self-governing dominion, similar to that of New- 
foundland or New Zealand. Sir Horace Plunkett and even 
Asquith himself favored this solution of the problem, but Lloyd 
George and the Unionists, as well as De Valera and the Sinn 
Feiners, would have none of it. 

, Next to Sinn Fein the most serious obstacle to a settlement 
of the difficulty was Ulster, which under the guidance of Sir 
Edward Carson had opposed and brought to naught the Asquith 
Act of 1914, with its single parliament, and accepted, reluc- 
tantly, the plan of two parliaments embodied in the Lloyd George 
bill of 1920. Protestant Ulstermen rejected altogether the Sinn 
Fein program, and were apparently opposed to Dominion Home 
Rule, unless that scheme should make provision for two parlia- 
ments. So intense was the hostility between the Sinn Feiners 
and the Unionist Ulstermen that through the summer and 
autumn of 1920, in Londonderry and Belfast, where religious 
hostility was added to the political antipathy, bloody riots 
took place, which attained at times almost the proportions of 
a civil war. 

Sinn Feiners, claiming that these outbreaks were deliberately 
fostered by British officials at Dublin and that disunion in Ire- 
land was encouraged by the British government for political 
purposes, believed that Ulster, if let alone by Lloyd George and 
Carson, would eventually join the republicans ; but others, 
equally well informed, denied vehemently that the government 
had ever interfered in Ulster except for the purpose of keeping 



424 ERA OF REFORM, DEMOCRACY, AND EMPIRE. [1.920 

the peace, and were convinced that the only solution lay in the 
Lloyd George bill of 1920. The situation seemed almost hope- 
less in the autumn of 1920, though many, certain that matters 
could not become worse and ought not to be allowed to con- 
tinue any longer as they were, believed that a compromise would 
eventually be reached. " What the American people do not 
know," said Viscount Bryce, himself an Irishman, " is that the 
great majority of the English people desire to give Ireland the 
fullest measure of freedom within the empire. But it is in the 
divisions within Ireland herself, not in the lack of good-will on 
England's part, that there lies practically the only obstacle 
which still delays the peaceful settlement which the British 
democracy desires." 

411. Conclusion. — Both politically and socially the year 
1920 was one of ferment and change, yet the outlook was full of 
encouragement. Wonderful advances had been made. The 
war had been won, democratic government had been established, 
and the needs of all classes of the population had become as 
never before matters of vital concern to everyone interested in 
the future welfare of the British nation. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT "WAR 

412. The British Empire. — Our attention has thus far been 
concentrated upon the British Isles and the growth of democ- 
racy and representative government within the mother coun- 
try itself. But a Greater Britain was in existence, scattered in 
different parts of the world, and made up of a great variety of 
colonies and dominions. These may be divided into groups as 
follows. 

First, possessions without self-government of any kind, such 
as Gibraltar, St. Helena, and islands in the Atlantic and 
Pacific oceans. Second, crown colonies, such as Ceylon, the 
Leeward Islands, etc., possessing local government but not self- 
government, and administered by the colonial office in London. 
Third, crown colonies, such as the Bahamas, Barbadoes, 
and Bermuda, possessing representative self-government but, 
since their governors and councils were appointed from London, 
not possessing responsible government, that is, complete control 
over their domestic affairs. Fourth, a protectorate, Egypt, 
so declared December 18, 1914 (thus bringing to an end the 
suzerainty of Turkey), itself almost an empire, with the Anglo- 
Egyptian Sudan behind it. Fifth, a dependency, India, an 
empire of more than 700 native states, provinces, and discricts, 
none of them possessing parliamentary institutions or responsible 
government, varying in size from great kingdoms to petty 
areas, in age from ancient dynasties to modern states, and in 
degrees of subordination to British rule from the native allied 
feudatories, self-administered, to the tracts directly under the 
control of British officials. Sixth, the great self-governing 

425 



426 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. , [1914 

dominions, Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand, 
and South Africa, under responsible governments, which had 
evolved from crown colonies into modern constitutional states, 
in nearly all respects independent of outside control. 

413. The British Empire on the Eve of War. — In 1914 the 
territory of the British Empire covered more than a fifth of 
the land surface of the globe and its inhabitants numbered 
one fourth of the world's population. But its territories were 
scattered in all hemispheres and a majority of the subjects of 
the British king and emperor were of other than the Caucasian 
race. There was deep unrest among the natives of India and 
Egypt, and even as far as the self-governing dominions were 
concerned, where national and local interests were often antag- 
onistic to those of the mother country, there was no certainty 
that under the strain of disaster or war the British overseas 
people would rally to the mother's defense. 

No imperial system bound together the far-flung line of this 
great disjointed organization and no legal obligation held the 
inhabitants of colonies or dominions to the military service- of 
the crown. Though the British navy was the first in the world, 
it was in largest part a British not an imperial navy. Inasmuch 
as the military forces of the dominions were used for local 
police and revenue-collecting purposes only, there was no im- 
perial army, the only instrument for the military service of the 
empire as a whole being the expeditionary force that was main- 
tained at home for service abroad whenever needed. 

Within the United Kingdom itself conditions in the year 
1914 were not indicative either of strength or unity. Ulster 
had been in revolt for two years on account of the threatened 
passage of the Home Rule Bill, and civil war seemed imminent. 
There were signs of insubordination in the army ; labor was 
discontented and restless and strikes were rampant ; finances 
were in disorder and controversies over industrial and economic 
reforms were disorganizing political and social life ; the militant 
suffragettes were redoubling their energies and increasing their 



1878] THE CAUSES OF THE GREAT WAR. 427 

attacks on property and the government. Dissension, not 
harmony, seemed the order of the day. 

It is not surprising that to the outside observer the United 
Kingdom should have seemed honeycombed with disloyalty 
and the empire ready for disruption. At this juncture, when 
Great Britain, to all outward appearance at least, was little 
prepared to face a great crisis and to meet any extraordinary 
strain upon her resources, she was called upon to face the most 
terrible war in her history. 

414. The Causes of the Great War. — The beginnings of 
trouble in Europe may be traced to the year 1878, when at the 
treaty of Berlin Austria was given permission to occupy and 
administer the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which 
belonged to Turkey. Thirty years later, Austria annexed these 
provinces, in the face of the protests of Russia, France, and 
England, thus making clear her determination to extend her 
territory toward the southeast in the direction of the ^gean 
Sea. This attempt of Austria to obtain a hold upon Balkan 
territory was followed in 1911 by Italy's attack upon Turkey 
and the conquest of Tripoli, which was ceded to Italy by Turkey 
in October, 1912. 

These successful attempts of two of the leading powers of 
Europe to enlarge their possessions at Turkey's expense stirred 
up the Balkan states — Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and 
Greece — to renew once more their designs against Turkey, 
and beginning with October, 1912, they entered upon what are 
known as the Balkan Wars, the first of which lasted until the 
treaty of London, May 30, 1913. In this war the four Balkan 
states formed an alliance to drive Turkey out of Europe and 
to divide her territory among themselves. In this they were 
partly successful and at the treaty of London Turkey surrendered 
all her European lands except Constantinople and its environs. 

But in the division of the spoils, partly because of jealousy 
and partly because of the interference of Austria and Italy, 
who refused to allow Serbia and Montenegro to extend their 



428 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1914 

territory to the Adriatic, trouble arose, and in June Bulgaria, 
counting on Austria's support, opened the second Balkan war 
in an attack upon Serbia. But she suffered defeat because 
Greece and Rumania joined Serbia and the Turks attacked 
her from the rear. By the treaty of Bucharest, August 10, 
1913, Bulgaria's territory was cut down to the advantage of 
Serbia, Greece, and Rumania, and even Turkey, because of the 
insistence of Germany, recovered Adrianople. 

In the years 1913-1914 relations between Austria and Serbia 
were strained almost to the breaking point. Serbia, supported 
by Russia, had succeeded, by means of the large accessions of 
territory which she had gained, in blocking Austria's Balkan 
ambitions. Austria had enormous pride and it was intolerable 
to her statesmen that she, and her protege Bulgaria, should 
suffer defeat at the hands of her despised neighbor. When, 
therefore, on June 28, 1914, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, 
heir apparent to the Hapsburg thrones, was assassinated, to- 
gether with his wife, at Serajevo, the chief city of Bosnia, the 
tension reached the breaking point. Austria declared, and with 
truth, that the assassins, who were Serbian students hating the 
Hapsburg regime, had received encouragement and assistance 
from Serbian officials, and she insisted that if this sort of thing 
were allowed to go on, the very existence of Austria-Hungary 
would be imperiled. 

But as Serbia was backed by Russia, Austria would hardly 
have dared to punish her without definite assurances of aid 
from Germany. When the matter was brought to the attention 
of the Kaiser, by special messenger on July 5, 1914, he dis- 
cussed it with his chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, and assured 
Austria that whatever her decision might be regarding Serbia, 
Germany would stand behind her as an ally and friend.^ In 

1 There was no ' 'imperial conference " or " crown council " held at Potsdam 
on July 5, as narrated in Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, pp. 84-85. Ac- 
cording to that story the Kaiser summoned his ambassadors, military and 
naval leaders, bankers, railroad directors, and prominent business men of 
Germany, and asked each in turn if he was ready for war. Each replied 



1914] DECLARATIONS OF WAR. 429 

consequence of this promise, Austria sent an ultimatum to 
Serbia, July 23, couched in almost insulting terms. When 
Serbia in reply demurred to some of the demands as impairing 
her position as an independent and sovereign state, Austria 
threw off the mask and on July 28 declared war on Serbia. 

415. Declarations of War. The Neutrality of Belgium. — 
Events moved quickly in that summer of 1914 and the world 
stood aghast as one happening followed another. On July 
28 Austria declared war on Serbia ; on July 29 Russia began 
to gather together, that is, to mobilize, her army; from the 
29th to the 31st frantic efforts were made, chiefly by England, 
to effect a settlement, but without success ; on the 31st Germany 
issued two ultimatums, one to Russia, demanding that she 
cease her Warlike preparations within twelve hours, and one to 
France, asking whether or not in case of war she v/ould remain 
neutral. On receiving Russia's refusal, Germany immediately 
declared war against her, August 1, and when France declined 
to commit herself declared war against 'her also, August 3. 
Thus four of the great European powers were already com- 
mitted to a terrible conflict. Would the area of battle be en- 
larged? Italy at once announced her refusal to follow her 
partners in the Triple Alliance and remained neutral. What 
would Great Britain do ? 

Great Britain was under no bond to enter the war on either 
side and Germany had hoped that she would declare for neu- 
trality. In fact the German chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, 
had already approached Sir W. E. Goschen, the British am- 
bassador at Berlin, with the question, promising to respect the 
territory of France but not that of her colonies, if Great Britain 
would stand aloof. Sir Edward Grey indignantly rejected 

"Yes," except the bankers, who wanted a Httle more time. This story has 
been denied by Germans in a position to know and rests on no documentary 
foundation. It must be rejected as untrue. The Kaiser's decision to 
support Austria in energetic action against Serbia was all that Count 
Berchtold needed in order to carry out his policy. See the articles by 
Professor Fay in the American Historical Review for July and October, 1920. 



430 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1914 

the offer. In the end Germany herself was responsible for the 
final decision. Twenty-four hours before war was declared 
against France, Germany set in motion her troops toward the 
western frontier, not toward that portion bordering on France 
between Luxemburg and Switzerland, but toward the frontier 
of Luxemburg and Belgium, states whose neutrality had been 
guaranteed by treaties to which both Prussia and England 
were parties. On August 2 the troops occupied Luxemburg, 
and on August 3, after Belgium had absolutely refused to 
grant the German troops permission to pass through the state, 
they violated Belgium's neutrality by crossing the border. 
On August 4 Great Britain took her place beside France and 
Russia and entered the war against Germany. 

The decision was a momentous one, not only for Great Britain 
but even more for Germany, who, though the greatest military 
power in the world, had now arrayed against her two great 
military nations and an empire whose navy ranked first among 
the navies of the earth. No wonder German diplomats were 
disappointed and angry, and berated Great Britain, as the Ger- 
man chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, bitterly declared, for 
making war on a kindred nation just for a scrap of paper — 
the treaty of neutrality. 

For the sake of getting into France by the quickest route, 
Germany gave to Great Britain the strongest possible pretext 
for intervening in the great conflict, and in so doing threw down 
the gage of battle to the mistress of the seas. This was the 
first of Germany's many diplomatic blunders, based on a 
serious miscalculation of British strength and character; for 
in the end Great Britain proved to be the mightiest of all the 
obstacles that lay in the path of Teutonic victory. 

416. The Conquest of Belgium. First Battle of the Marne. — 
Having made up her mind to invade Belgium, Germany began 
the attack by way of the northern of two lines, one of which ran 
from Cologne, through Aix, Liege, Namur, and Maubeuge, 
the other, the southern, from Coblentz, through Luxemburg 



1914] THE CONQUEST OF BELGIUM. 431 

to Verdun. The heroic resistance of the Belgian people, led 
by their high-minded and courageous king, Albert, so dis- 
arranged Germany's plans that eighteen days were required 
instead of six in which to cross the neutral state. This delay 
enabled the British to send across the Channel into France a 
small expeditionary force of 150,000 men under Gen. Sir John 
French (the " contemptible little army," as the Kaiser called 
it), and, in combination with the French under the general 
command of Gen. Joffre, still further to stay German progress. 

But, compelled to retreat, the Franco-British forces fell back, 
the French from the Ardennes, the British from Mons (August 
20-24), fighting fiercely as they went. Taking their stand 
finally on a line curving deeply from Verdun toward Paris 
(only eighteen miles away) and beyond in a northerly direction, 
they began a counter-attack in the first battle of the Marne 
(September 6-12), one of the decisive battles of history. In a 
series of engagements, the most brilliant of which was the 
attack by Gen. Ferdinand Foch at the center along the Marne, 
the Germans were compelled to retreat. 

Thus the carefully laid plans of the German General Staff 
were thrown into confusion, their hope of capturing Paris at 
one stroke was destroyed, and belief in the invincibility of the 
German armies received a staggering blow. The despised 
Belgians and the " contemptible " British shared with the 
numerically larger French army in the glory of this almost 
miraculous success. 

Foiled in their effort to capture Paris, the Germans fell back 
on prepared positions to the center and south ; but in the north 
they continued their offensive by capturing Antwerp (October 
8) and attempting to obtain possession of the Channel ports. 
They seized Zeebrugge and Ostend, but got no further, for in 
the frightfully bloody battle of Flanders (October-November), 
along a line from the coast to Ypres and Arras, Belgians, British, 
Canadians, and French held back three German armies and 
completely frustrated their attempts to break through. After 



432 



THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR, 



[1914 



November, battles in the open ceased, and both sides settled 
down for the winter in parallel lines of trenches, stretching 
from the coast to Switzerland for nearly six hundred miles, of 
which the Belgians held 18, the British and Colonials 31, and 
the French 543. 

Thus Germany not only failed in her immediate object, but, 
by her barbarous methods of conducting war and her atrocious 

treatment of Belgian towns 
and inhabitants, she spread 
such a feeling of horror 
among civilized peoples 
and so shocked the moral 
sense of the Western World 
as to make her enemies 
determined to defeat her 
at all costs. 

417. Great Britain's 
Effort, 1914-1915.— Great 
Britain was not a military 
nation, but she had al- 
il^eady accomplished won- 
ders with her little army 
and had exhibited a cour- 
age and tenacity of pur- 
pose that was beyond 
praise. But the fighting 
in Flanders and notably 
the loss of Antwerp, which the British government tried to 
prevent by means of a badly planned expedition, showed such 
inadequate preparation that government and people began 
slowly to realize the magnitude of the task before them. Lord 
Kitchener, England's greatest soldier,^ had already been 

1 Kitchener was drowned off northern Scotland, June 6, 1916, when the 
Hampshire, on which he had embarked for Russia, was sunk. He was suc- 
ceeded as war minister by Lloyd George. 




Kitchener of Khartum. 



1914] BRITISH NAVAL SUPREMACY. 433 

appointed secretary of war and immediately set about raising 
an army. Volunteers from every walk of life responded heroi- 
cally to the call to arms. Preparations were begun to make 
up deficiencies in guns, ammunition, and supplies of all kinds, 
and with feverish determination men and women turned from 
their daily tasks to the business of meeting in every way the 
needs of the soldiers at the front. 

From the colonies — Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and 
even India and the Malay States — came heartening promises 
of help and cooperation ; and troops began to gather at various 
points in response to the call of the mother country. By the 
spring of 1915 there were nearly 800,000 volunteers, English, 
Scottish, Irish, and Welsh, available from the United Kingdom 
itself, and 200,000 more from the colonies and India, either at 
the front in France, in training camps, or on their way overseas. 
The response of the colonies was a magnificent exhibition of 
loyalty. In the end not a single member, large or small, of 
the widely scattered British world failed to make some con- 
tribution, either in men, supplies, money, or all three together, 
to the common cause. 

418. British Naval Supremacy. — More important even 
than this impressive demonstration of the unity of the British 
Empire was Great Britain's share in maintaining the mastery 
of the seas. In conjunction with the navies of France and 
Russia, her fleet was able to restrict the area of fighting to the 
soil of Europe, Asia, and Africa. It not only swept all merchant 
vessels from the ocean and drew around the Central Powers a 
blockade that barred food, raw materials, and military supplies 
from reaching their armies and civilian population, but it 
effectively bottled up the German fleet in German waters 
and rendered useless the great naval strength which for fifteen 
years Germany had done so much to develop. 

Furthermore, it kept the seas open for the transportation of 
men and supplies from all parts of the British world and guarded 
with sleepless vigilance the passageway of the Channel, across 



434 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1914 

which to France passed a continuous stream of men, equip- 
ment, ammunition, food for the armies, and doctors, nurses, 
and suppUes for medical and hospital service. It enabled France 
to bring colonial troops from northern Africa, and later aided 
the United States to transport her troops across the Atlantic. 
One only has to consider what the situation would have been 
had Germany controlled the seas to realize that Great Britain's 
naval supremacy was the greatest single factor in the winning 
of the war. 

419. The Dardanelles Expedition. — Early in November, 
1914, Russia, Great Britain, and France declared war upon 
the Ottoman Empire, which had openly protected war ves- 
sels of the Central Powers. Three months later, the Brit- 
ish and French governments resolved to take the offensive, 
by forcing their way through the Dardanelles and capturing 
Constantinople. This famous exploit, which ended in terrible 
failure, lasted from February to December, 1915, and was one 
of the outstanding features of the war, partly because of the 
heroism displayed by the Allied troops (French, British, Aus- 
tralians and New Zealanders, or " Anzacs," as they came to 
be called,! with troops from Senegal and India) and partly 
because of the terrible losses incurred. The failure was due in 
the beginning to bad management and poorly laid plans, and in 
the end to lack of reserves and sufficient shell supplies. At the 
opening of the attack British and French battleships bombarded 
for more than a month the Turkish forts at the entrance of the 
straits, but without other result than the loss of three of their 
first-class vessels. 

Meanwhile their troops, to the number eventually of 300,000 
men, were landed on the western shore of the Gallipoli peninsula 
and gained at tremendous cost a precarious foothold, to which 
they clung for nine months. Though frequently victorious in 
single attacks, they were unable to drive the Turks from their 
intrenched strongholds on the heights, and at the close of the 

1 From the initials of the Australia and New Zealand Auxiliary Corps. 



1915] CLOSE OF 1915. LOSS OF ALLIED PRESTIGE. 435 

year they gave up the attempt. Though the undertaking as 
a whole reflected but httle credit upon those who promoted it, 
it shed infinite glory upon the British and French navies and 
upon the men who for nine long months faced death from 
cold and heat, thirst and pest, and continuous Turkish 
shell-fire. 

420. Close of 1915. Loss of Allied Prestige. — The year 
which had opened so auspiciously for the Allies closed in dis- 
couragement. The Dardanelles campaign was a dismal failure ; 
Russia, who, before May 1, had raised Allied hopes by her 
splendid advances toward Hungary and in Poland, was forced to 
give way before the Germans under the able leadership of 
Gens. Mackensen and Hindenburg, and withdrew from Poland 
and Galicia (in August and September). In September 
Bulgaria, encouraged by the Russian losses, joined the Central 
Powers, and the Allied troops, gathered at Salonica on the 
Mgean, were unable to advance because of the attitude of 
Constantine, the pro-German king of Greece and the Kaiser's 
brother-in-law. Germany was beginning to recover from the 
disasters of 1914 and to extend her control over the territories 
southeast and east. Also, she was preparing to build up a 
great state of " Middle Europe," which was to be completely 
under her own domination, and to receive large sections of 
the Balkans and of Russia. 

On the Western front, the Allies made little progress with 
trench warfare, because the German troops were too strongly 
established in trenches, redoubts, and other fortifications, which 
were often underground and were constructed in a most sub- 
stantial manner of timber and concrete. They had unlimited 
numbers of guns and supplies of ammunition. Against these 
continuous lines of trench fortresses, the Allies hurled them- 
selves in vain. Among the most severe of these battles were 
those of Neuve Chapelle (March 10, 1915), which cost the British 
13,000 men ; and Ypres (April-May, 1915), begun by the Ger- 
mans and famous as the first battle in which asphyxiating 



436 



THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. 



[1916 



gas was used, but ending without success on either side. The 
Germans considered these onslaughts failures for the Allies, and 
the Allies themselves realized their own inferiority to the Ger- 
mans in munitions, guns, airplanes, and other weapons of war. 
To meet this state of unpreparedness, the British people re- 
doubled their efforts and Great Britain became a land of muni- 
tion factories, turning out 
in ever-increasing num- 
bers guns, shells, grenades, 
armored cars, and gas 
masks, which were hurried 
over to France in the 
shortest possible time. 
Because of a general dis- 
satisfaction with the con- 
duct of the war and a 
demand for a more aggres- 
sive policy Gen. French 
was replaced (as chief 
commander of the British 
armies in France) by Gen. 
Sir Pouglas Haig (Decem- 
ber, 1915). To meet a 
falling off in recruiting, 
due largely to discontent 
with the government 
policy, a limited conscription bill was passed by parliament in 
January, 1916. 

421. Verdun, February-August, 1916. — Germany's hopes 
were high at the opening of 1916. Russia was helpless, the 
Allies were apparently inferior on the Western front, and the 
great state of " Middle Europe " was, outwardly at least, a 
reality. To anticipate an Anglo-French drive, which they 
knew was bound to come at the earliest possible moment, the 
German military leaders determined to begin a great drive of 




General Sir Douglas Haig. 
Copyright by Underwood and Underwood- 



1916] THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND. 437 

their own, and that too in a quarter where success would be most 
hkely to discourage the French and possibly put them out of the 
war. Their objective was the great fortress of Verdun, one of 
the four which France had erected to protect her Eastern front 
from German invasion. 

The attack was made on February 21, 1916, by the German 
army under the command of the Crown Prince Frederick Wil- 
liam and was accompanied by a bombardment of overwhelming 
fury. The advancing Germans, taking the French by surprise, 
were at first successful in dislodging the enemy and driving 
them from one stronghold after another, back toward the 
fortress. But the arrival of Gen. Petain with reenforcements 
brought the onslaught to a halt and finally forced the Germans 
to retire. The first phase of the battle lasted until February 
29, when the German staff became aware that only at a fearful 
cost could victory be won. However, they could not withdraw 
at this juncture, for withdrawal would be more disgraceful than 
defeat, and it became necessary for them to take Verdun no 
matter what the cost should prove to be. From March 6 until 
April 15 they continued their assaults with criminal disregard 
of the lives sacrificed ; but the French had said to themselves, 
" They shall not pass," and pass the Germans never did, though 
they continued to fight with all the fury of a maddened and 
baffled foe. Charge followed charge, the artillery continued 
its withering fire of high explosives ; and mines, gas, liquid 
fire — every contrivance known to an ingenious and desperate 
foe — were used with deadly effect. But the French met fire 
with fire, their lines held, and before summer had gone all 
realized that the German sacrifices had been made in vain. 
The failure at Verdun was the second great German defeat of 
the war. The fortress itself was never taken. 

422. The Battle of Jutland, May 31, 1916. — Germany's 
outlook in May was far less encouraging than it had been in 
January, for the carefully planned attempt to strike a blow at 
the heart of France had failed disastrously. Italy had declared 



438 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1&16 

war in May, 1915, during the Dardanelles campaign, and an 
advance upon her by Austrian troops, begun while the Verdun 
enterprise was under way (May-June), brought no encourage- 
ment, for the Italian lines held against every attempt to break 
them. The Russians were showing signs of recovery. The use 
of the submarine, which for a year or more had been effective 
against the merchant marine and had found its greatest victim in 
the unarmed Cunard steamer Lusitania, May 7, 1915, was stir- 
ring the neutral states to wrath, and in March Portugal declared 
war on Germany. The United States, outraged by the loss 
of American lives on the Lusitania, and further agitated by the 
sinking of the Sussex in the English Channel on March 24, 
1916, was demanding a cessation of such ruthless methods of 
warfare. 

At this juncture the Germans, taking the gambler's chance 
of scoring a success, determined to risk a naval battle. On 
May 31, 1916, the German fleet left its base at Kiel and steamed 
northward in search of the British Grand Fleet, which as they 
knew was on one of its tours of inspection through the North 
Sea. On one side were Admirals von Hippen and von Scheer, 
with some forty dreadnaughts, cruisers, and destroyers ; on 
the other Admiral Jellicoe with the main British fleet and 
Vice Admiral Beatty with a subsidiary squadron — together 
totaling fifty battleships and smaller craft. 

The battle began in the afternoon and continued until dark- 
ness brought the engagement to a close. Beatty's squadron, 
while separated from the main fleet, closed with the enemy, but, 
outnumbered and outclassed, it suffered heavy damage and was 
obliged to retreat. On the arrival of Jellicoe's heavier vessels 
the Germans were forced to retire, but eluding pursuit in the 
mist and darkness they were able to make their way safely, 
though with a heavier proportional loss, back to their moorings 
at Kiel. The margin of advantage lay with the British. Both 
on land at Verdun and at sea off Jutland the Germans had 
failed to secure a victory. " They shall not pass " was true 



1916] CONCERTED ALLIED DRIVES. 439 

not only of the heights about Verdun, but also of the passes of 
Italy and the waters of the North Sea. 

423. Concerted Allied Drives, June-November, 1916. — The 
remainder of the year 1916 was devoted to efforts on the part 
of all the Allies to bring the war to a close by concerted military 
attacks on all fronts at the same time. They hoped that the 
Central Powers, discouraged by failure in battle, weakened at 
home by danger of famine and by fear of internal revolutions, 
would be unable to withstand a combined offensive of this 
kind. An Allied military council met in Paris in March and 
adopted plans for common action in matters concerning the 
blockade, munitions, and the prosecution of the war. As a 
result of the lessons learned in 1915, the munitions situation 
had improved enormously. Under Lloyd George as minister 
of munitions. Great Britain was equaling Germany in her 
output and in the efficiency of her organization and was sending 
across the Channel a supply from her 2000 government-con- 
trolled factories, that surpassed each week the entire stock in the 
country before the war. Under the circumstances the Allies 
were convinced that the time had come for a general offensive, 
on a scale hitherto unknown, against the enemy. 

So vastly had the area of war widened that there were now 
six fronts from which an offensive could be launched — the 
West, Italy, Russia, Salonica, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. 
Up to this time but little had been done either at Salonica or in 
Egypt, but in Mesopotamia an ill-advised advance up the 
Tigris had resulted in the capture by the Turks of Gen. Town- 
shend with a small British expeditionary force in November, 
1915. The Allies were now ready to strike at all these points, in 
a series of offensives simultaneously directed. 

At first the results were encouraging. The Russians entered 
the Bukowina and on June 16 occupied Czernowitz, ready to 
force the passes of the Carpathians north of Transylvania 
(June- August). On August 27 Rumania, confident that 
Russia's success would be permanent, joined the Allies. On 



440 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1916 

August 9 the Italians, advancing from the Trentino front, cap- 
tured Gorizia and gained a foothold on the Carso plateau. 
In July the British and French began the battle of the Somme, 
and with the aid of terrific artillery fire, the use of armored 
motor trucks with caterpillar treads, known as " tanks," and 
hundreds of airplanes, which though long a part of every battle 
were here employed with extraordinary success, drove back the 
Germans for a space of about seven miles. The contest was 
continued in successive waves of attack through September 
and on the part of the French into November ; and though the 
territory gained was relatively small, the prolonged offensive 
compelled the Germans to concentrate their entire attention 
on the Western front and brought upon them enormous losses 
in killed and wounded. The casualty lists of both Germans and 
Austrians were beginning to assume ominous proportions, and 
the world was wondering how long the Central Powers could 
stand such losses of men. 

Then the tide of success turned. Gen. Mackensen attacked 
Rumania in September and in an extraordinarily short time over- 
ran the greater part of the country. Russia, already suffering 
from an incompetent and corrupt administration at home, did 
little to help, and the Allied forces at Salonica under Gen. 
Sarrail, upon whom Rumania counted for a diversion against 
Bulgaria, were not only unprepared and insufficient in numbers, 
but were held back by fear of Greece, who threatened attack 
from the rear. Rumania, isolated and dependent solely upon 
her own strength, collapsed, and Mackensen entered the Ru- 
manian capital, Bucharest, on December 6. These German 
successes in the southeast were somewhat offset by a French 
victory at Verdun (October-November), where Gen. Mangin 
in a furious counter-attack recovered some of the most impor- 
tant strategic points that the Germans, at terrific cost, had 
gained earlier in the year. Much as Germany might accomplish 
in the East, she was making no progress in the West, and it 
was in the West that the final victory was to be won. 



1916] 



GERMANY'S SUBMARINE POLICY. 



441 



424. Germany's Submarine Policy. Entrance of the United 
States.^ — For the moment the AUies were disheartened. In 
England Asquith resigned because of bitter criticism by the 
Times and other newspapers under Lord Northchffe's control. 




" Middle Europe." 

As it existed, 1916-1918. The territory lightly shaded is that surrendered 
by Russia at Brest-Li tovsk, December, 1917- 

and Lloyd George, who became prime minister and minister 
of war, formed a coalition cabinet, with a war committee of five 



1 Before 1918 war was declared against Germany by Russia, France, 
Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, Japan, Serbia, Montenegro, Portugal, 
Rumania, the United States, Cuba, Panama, China, Brazil, Siam, Liberia, 
and Greece. In 1918 Costa Rica, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and Nica- 
ragua did the same. Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Santo Domingo, and Uruguay 
severed diplomatic relations but did not declare war. Holland, Spain, 
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Persia, Mexico, Paraguay, Vene- 
zuela, United States of Colombia, Chile, and Argentina remained neutral. 



442 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1917 

members (December 6). Germany, believing that the Allies 
were ready to consider peace, made advances in various direc- 
tions but without the slightest success, for the Allies had no 
confidence in the peace overtures of a power that was occupy- 
ing enemy territory and extending widely its control over the 
lands to the eastward in order to lay the firm foundations of a 
Germanized " Middle Europe." 

Failing to end the war by victory in battle or by peaceful 
negotiation, the German government listened favorably to the 
persuasions of the military and naval leaders who for some time 
had been urging the use of the submarine as a certain means of 
success. Bethmann-Hollweg at first favored this Pan-German 
policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, and consequently 
on January 31, 1917, the government issued a note announcing 
that from February 1 all vessels, whether neutral or belligerent, 
would be sunk at sight, if found within certain prescribed areas 
adjoining Great Britain, France, and Italy, and in the eastern 
Mediterranean. 

By this ruthless violation of the freedom of the seas, Germany 
succeeded in stirring to its depths the resentment of the Amer- 
ican people and of uniting all classes and sections of the United 
States in a grim determination to end forever this menace to 
the peace of the world. On February 3, 1917, von Bernstorff, 
the German ambassador at Washington, was given his passports ; 
on April 2 President Wilson, in an address of great force and 
dignity, advised Congress to declare war; and on April 6, 
after both houses had adopted a declaration of war, issued a 
proclamation announcing that a state of war existed between 
the United States and the Imperial German Government. 

Though a peaceful people and ill-prepared for war, the Amerr 
icans had enormous wealth and endless resources, a large 
fleet, the material for an army of thirteen millions of men, and 
infinite courage and tenacity. The entrance of the United 
States into the war not only brought new vigor, new enthusiasm, 
and new ideals into the conflict, but also heartened the jaded 



1917] UNRESTRICTED SUBMARINE WARFARE. 443 

Allies who had for two and a half years borne the brunt of the 
fighting, and were weary, discouraged, and war-spent. The 
only doubt that lay in the Allied minds, — and it was the doubt 
that decided Germany in the adoption of her undersea boat 
policy, — was whether the United States could raise and train 
an army and transport it when trained across three thousand 
miles of a submarine-infested ocean in time to save the Allies 
from what Germany believed to be certain defeat. 

425. The Russian Revolution. — For the moment the situa- 
tion looked ominous. In March, 1917, a revolution broke out in 
Petrograd (St. Petersburg), the Czar, Nicholas II, was com- 
pelled to abdicate, and a provisional government was estab- 
lished. At first this uprising was welcomed by the Allies and the 
United States as the overthrow of autocracy and the bringing 
of Russia into line with the democratic states of the West; 
but as summer came on the conditions grew steadily more dis- 
turbing. The provisional government of the moderate middle 
class gave way under pressure from the radicals, until finally 
the Bolsheviki, led by Lenin and Trotsky, who belonged to 
the extreme socialist group, seized the power and established a 
dictatorship of the proletariat, a minority element, working 
through " Soviets," or committees of workmen, soldiers, and 
peasants. The result was twofold : first, the Russian army at 
the front went to pieces and Russia ceased to be of value to the 
Allies as a military power; and secondly, in December, 1917, 
at a gathering of German and Bolshevik representatives at 
Brest-Litovsk, east of Warsaw, the Bolshevik government 
made peace with Germany and permanently retired from the 
war. 

426. Unrestricted Submarine Warfare. — While Russia was 
thus deserting the Allies and passing into a state of chaos and an- 
archy, Germany was testing her policy of frightfulness at sea. 
From February to July, 1917, the submarines reaped a fearful 
harvest of Allied and neutral merchant vessels, causing the 
loss of thousands of lives and the destruction of immense 



444 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1917 

quantities of munitions and foodstuffs. But tlie sinking of 
so large a number of ships could not be maintained. From 
a total of 4,000,000 tons lost before July, 1917, the number 
decreased to 2,200,000 from July to December, to 1,150,000 
from January to March, 1918, and to 950,000 from April 
to May. 

This steady decrease betokened eventual failure. It was 
due in part to the skill with which the British and American 
navies patrolled the seas and protected their commerce, the 
successful use of nets, depth-bombs, convoys, airplanes, 
dirigible balloons, and ship-disguises and screens of various 
kinds, and in part to the serious difficulties which Germany 
encountered in building, refitting, and manning her undersea 
boats. By the end of 1917 it was everywhere conceded that 
the submarine policy was but another of Germany's blunders, 
and that her atrocious weapon had turned in her own hand. 
The British people were not only unbroken in health and spirit, 
but were more resolute and determined than ever to pursue the 
war to the bitter end, while across the ocean were coming .in 
regular succession convoyed fleets of transports carrying thou- 
sands of soldiers from America, undeterred by submarine and 
equally resolute to play their part in the war for democracy and 
humanity. 

427. Allied Victories in the West, 1917. — Though Russia 
was lost, the United States was taking its place as a working and 
fighting partner with the Allies, and with boundless energy and 
unexpected rapidity was preparing itself for war. Already had 
the government loaned the Allied powers nearly ten billions 
of dollars ($9,600,000,000) and now continued its dispatch 
of munitions, provisions, grain, and clothing in ever-increasing 
quantities. Before midsummer it had sent Admiral Sims with a 
fleet to join the British in British waters and Gen. Pershing with 
a contingent of regulars to aid the Allies in France. By 
December there were on French soil 250,000 American soldiers. 
The welcome that these men received testified to the war- 



1917] ALLIED VICTORIES IN THE WEST, 1917, 445 

weariness of England, France, and Italy and to the Joy every- 
where felt at this visible evidence of America's determination to 
take part in the winning of the war. 

In the meantime the Allies were making substantial gains 
along the Western front. The war of attrition had been going 
steadily on and plans were under consideration for another 
smashing offensive against the German lines. In previous 
attacks the French and British had broken the lines at many 
points, creating, here and there, salients, or projecting angles, 
that were difficult for the Germans to defend. 

Consequently Gen. Hindenburg, who had been made chief 
of the German army staff in August, 1916, resolved to withdraw 
to a stronger system of trenches, which had long been in process 
of construction, and which, though given various names by the 
Germans themselves, came to be known among the Allies as the 
Hindenburg Line. His object was in part to straighten the line 
and to shorten it, getting rid of the salients, and in part to antic- 
ipate the Allied offensive and to compel them to attack in open 
ground, already waste and desolate. 

The Allies accepted the challenge, and believing that the 
withdrawal was a confession of weakness, began a concerted 
advance. On March 17 Gen. Haig with the British and Gen. 
Niveile with the French entered on their pursuit of the retreating 
Germans. In the battle of Arras (April-May) and in the battle 
of the Aisne (April 16-20) Haig and Niveile gained ground, and 
further fighting by the British at Ypres and Arras, and of the 
French at the Chemin des Dames and Laon and in October at 
Soissons and Verdun disclosed the Allied determination to win 
a decision if possible. 

In this succession of great battles in Flanders, at Arras, on 
the Aisne, and at Verdun, accompanied by terrific artillery 
barrages, mine explosions, the use of tanks, airplanes, and 
gas, and furious attacks and counter-attacks, English, Irish, 
Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, and French smashed 
into the German defense, occupied many square miles of terri- 



446 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. . [1917. 

tory, and captured thousands of prisoners. But they were 
unable to win a positive victory or to drive the Germans 
beyond the Hindenburg Line. 

428. Allied Victory in the East. Greece. — While the Allies 
were driving the Germans back upon the Hindenburg Line, 
encouraging signs of eventual victory were appearing in the 
East. At the beginning of the year, Gen. Maude, moving up the 
Tigris, avenged the defeat of Townshend in 1915 by capturing 
Bagdad (March 10, 1917) and occupying Mesopotamia. On 
June 12, in Greece, the Allies forced the pro-German king, 
Constantine, to abdicate in favor of his son, Alexander, and with 
Venizelos, the greatest of Greek statesmen and a friend of the 
Allies, as prime minister, brought Greece at last into line with 
the enemies of the Central Powers. With Greece friendly and 
united, a forward move from Salonica against Bulgaria was 
certain to be made in the near future. The situation in Egypt 
was materially simplified when the year before (November, 
1916) Husein, sherif of Mecca, revolted from the Ottoman 
Empire, set up the independent state of Hedjaz (Arabia), and 
aided the British in their efforts to advance into Palestine. As 
a result. Gen. Allenby captured Jerusalem on December 10, 
1917, and amid the rejoicings of the Christian World ended 
the rule of the Turks in the Holy Land. 

By the spring of 1918 the shadow of discouragement had begun 
to lift, hope was in the air, strong men were in political command 

— Clemenceau in France, Orlando in Italy, Lloyd George in 
England, where the pacifist Henderson had resigned from the 
War Cabinet, and in America Wilson, whose Fourteen Points, 
issued on January 8, 1918, became the platform of the Allies 
during the remainder of the war. 

429. Germany's Last Effort. The Great Drives. — Germany 
was as blind as were the Allies to the signs of the times. Ignor- 
ing the manifest weakness and lukewarmness among her allies 

— Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey — and the un- 
substantial character of all her Eastern conquests, she believed 



1918] GERMANY'S LAST EFFORT. 447 

that the time had come to complete her work by one final effort 
in the West. Her leaders thought that Italy was defeated, 
that France was bleeding to death, that Great Britain was at 
the end of her resources and facing starvation, and that the 
United States would not be able to enter the war for another 
year. They resolved to strike at once and with all their might, 
and both Field Marshal Hindenburg and his efficient colleague. 
Gen. Eric Ludendorff, promised the German people that this 
time they would be successful. 

The series of battles or " drives," begun on March 21, 1918, 
with an attack on the British line in Picardy, was perhaps the 
greatest military encounter in all recorded history, because of 
the numbers engaged on both sides, the fury of the onsets, the 
stubbornness of the defense, the devices of war employed, 
and the issues at stake. On the 21st the Germans struck be- 
tween Arras and the Oise, where the British under Gen. Byng 
and Gen. Gough were holding the line, in a measure unprepared 
for the attack that was coming. Forced to give way, they re- 
treated in good order, contesting every inch of the ground, until, 
with the aid of French reenforcements, they brought the Germans 
to a standstill. By March 26 the drive was over, the Germans 
had gained a large amount of territory and captured many 
prisoners, but the " infiltration " plan had not been successful, 
the British line was intact, and Amiens, the German objective, 
was still beyond their reach. 

Again the Germans struck, this time farther north, between 
Arras and Ypres, and again the British gave way, fighting 
during three heartrending weeks with stubborn determina- 
tion, making the Germans pay heavily for every inch of ground 
they won, until in the old fighting region of Passchendaele and 
Messines ridges and Mt. Kemmel, the final test was made. 
The Germans succeeded in occupying Mt. Kemmel, but there 
the men of the thin British line with their backs to the wall 
held the day and the Germans advanced no farther. Ypres was 
not taken. 



448 



THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. 



[1918 



When in March the Allied leaders saw that Germany was pre- 
paring for a final spring, they realized that nothing should be left 
undone to meet it. At the opening of the drive. Gen. Pershing, 
with self-effacing promptness, placed the American troops that 
were in France at the service of the Allies, and a few days later 
at an Allied conference held near Amiens (March 25), while 

disaster threatened the 
Allied arms, the all- 
important decision was 
reached to place Gen. 
Ferdinand Foch at the 
head of all the Allied 
forces, and so to bring 
all the Allied movements 
under the command of a 
single head . At the same 
time new efforts were 
made to increase the re- 
serves. American troops 
were arriving each month, 
in constantly increasing 
numbers — ^more than 
half a million were ready 
in April and more than a 
million in July; and on 
April 8, England adopted 
an unlimited conscription act, which, though it brought on 
trouble with Ireland and embittered still further the relations 
between the two countries, showed that despite all the difficul- 
ties involved, England was determined to win. 

Germany's next great effort was against the French on the 
Aisne and the Oise, May 26-29, and progressed much as had 
the drives against the British in the north. Relentlessly and 
irresistibly, the French were driven back in three days of terrific 
fighting until the Germans stood again on the Marne at Chateau 



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General Ferdinand Foch. 
Copyright by Underwood and Underwood. 



1918] ALLIED COUNTER-OFFENSIVE. 449 

Thierry and on the Oise at Noyon, and were nearer Paris than 
at any time since 1914. The situation looked ominous. Could 
they widen their gains to include Rheims on one side and Com- 
piegne on the other? If they could, nothing could save Paris. 
But they never did. Every attempt made from June 6 to 
June 13 to extend their gains on the flanks failed of success, 
and a final onslaught on Rheims, June 18, ended in failure. 
At fearful cost the Germans had gained ground, but nowhere 
had they broken through or seriously weakened the Allied lines. 
It was a matter of serious import that on June 6 they had been 
even compelled to fall back for a short distance at Chateau 
Thierry, and that, too, before a body of French and Americans 
who drove them across the Marne. This cooperation of the 
Americans at a singularly opportune moment and their success- 
ful appearance as a fighting force at what appeared to be the 
high-water mark of the German offensive was an incident of 
first-class importance. 

430. Allied Counter-Offensive. — Trusting in the ability 
of the American troops, which were now arriving regularly and 
in large numbers, not only to serve as a great reserve force but 
also to take their places on the firing line with the veterans 
of France and England, Gen. Foch, on July 18, ordered an ad- 
vance. With new confidence and undiminished ardor, the 
Franco- Americans under Gens. Mangin and Degoutte attacked 
the western side of the German, line from the Aisne to Chateau 
Thierry. Their success was immediate. The Germans fell 
back in retreat and on August 3 Soissons was taken. From 
this time the Germans, bitterly resisting along every mile of 
their line, were gradually forced back upon their defenses. 
Their reserves were gone, their munitions and supplies were 
diminishing, and their soldiers, broken in morale, were losing 
confidence in their commanding officers. 

Foch's offensive in the second battle of the Marne and his 
capture of Soissons were followed almost at once by a general 
movement all along the Allied line. On August 18 the British 



450 



THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. 



[1918- 



and French under Gens. Rawlinson, Byng, and Debeney assailed 
the German line in Pieardy, Plumer struck near Ypres in 
Flanders, while Mangin continued his assaults on the Aisne. 
By September 1 the Germans were back on the Hindenburg 




The Allied Gounter-Offensive, July— Novembeb, 1918. 

Line, having lost all that they had gained since March and 

suffered casualties amounting to hundreds of thousands of men. 

On September 12 the first independent American army began 

a major operation of its own by sma-shing in the St. Mihiel 



1918] COLLAPSE OF THE CENTRAL POWERS. 451 

salient, which had been in German hands since the beginning of 
the war. Later in September the whole Allied line again made 
a concerted advance. Belgians, British, British-French, French, 
French-Americans, and Americans, driving hard and steadily, 
attacked and crossed the Hindenburg Line, the Americans 
playing a brilliant part in the Argonne and along the Meuse, 
where the extraordinarily strong defenses and the hundreds of 
machine-gun " nests " made progress slow and costly. 

The Germans fought with the courage of despair, hoping to 
resist defeat and capture. But they could not stem the Allied 
advance, and by November 1 were driven almost entirely out 
of Belgium and France. King Albert recovered his kingdom, 
the British were approaching Mons, — the starting point of their 
famous retreat, — while the French and Americans were forcing 
their way down the valley of the Meuse, threatening to cut off 
the German retreat. At last the Germans realized that if 
they were to be saved from complete disaster they must sue 
for peace. 

431. Collapse of the Central Powers. — While Gen. Foch 
was directing the concerted attack along the Western front, he 
was watching with understanding and readiness the situation in 
Italy, Salonica, and the farther East. With preparations made 
and a well-supplied army in hand, he ordered Gen. d'Esperey 
to move from Salonica northward against Bulgaria. On 
September 14 the advance was begun and in less than two 
weeks the Serbians, French, British, and Greeks, who made up 
d'Esperey's army, had overrun Macedonia and occupied south- 
ern Serbia and part of Bulgaria. On September 30 the Bulga- 
rian government sued for peace ; on October 4 the crafty King 
Ferdinand abdicated and fled; and within a month all Serbia 
was in Allied hands, the Danube reached, and the Teuton state 
of " Middle Europe " had vanished in thin air. 

On the heels of the Balkan victory came siiccess to Italy. 
On October 24 Gen. Diaz struck the Austrian army along the 
Piave and drove it back in headlong flight. Austria collapsed, 



452 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1919 

November 3. At the same time Gen. Maude on the Tigris 
and Gen. Allenby in Palestine and Syria set their troops in 
motion, the one capturing Aleppo on October 26 and com- 
pletely disorganizing the Turkish troops, the other seizing Mosul 
about the same time and coming into undisputed control of the 
whole Mesopotamian region. In the. face of these three ad- 
vancing forces, in Macedonia, Syria, and Mesopotamia, Turkey 
signed an armistice and withdrew from the war (October 30). 

Germany was now without an ally. Defeated at every point 
on the Western front, her people frantic with fear of impending 
invasion and seething with the spirit of revolt, she bowed to 
the inevitable and on November 11, 1918, at five o'clock in the 
morning, accepted and signed the terms of an armistice, to 
begin at 11 a.m. on that day. The greatest of wars was over. 

432. Treaty of Versailles, June 28, 1919. — On January 18, 
1919, there gathered at Paris representatives of 27 states and 
five British dominions, 70 authorized delegates in all, to consider 
terms of peace. There they remained for nearly four months, 
their leaders — at first an executive steering committee, the 
members of which represented the United States, England, 
France, Italy, and Japan, and, after March 24, the " Big Four," 
Clemenceau, Lloyd George, Wilson, and Orlando, aided by 
experts — engaged in the extraordinarily difficult task of for- 
mulating terms of peace to meet the situation created by four 
years of war and the defeat of Germany. The same " Big Four," 
in whom all real power finally rested, also drew up the plan of 
a League of Nations, wherewith to create a new international 
organization, for the purpose of maintaining peace and pre- 
venting future wars and, in many important specified particulars, 
of promoting the general welfare of civilization. 

On May 7 the text of the treaty was ready for signatures. 
As the Kaiser, William II, had abdicated, November 28, 1918, 
and a democratic republic had been set up in Germany, the 
German delegates represented the new government. These 
delegates, demurring to the hard terms of the treaty, prolonged 



1919] POSITION OF GREAT BRITAIN AFTER THE WAR. 453 

the discussion, and it was not until June 28 and the sending of a 
second set of delegates that the treaty was finally signed. This 
act was the more humiliating for Germany in that it took place 
in the Hall of Mirrors of the royal palace of Versailles, where in 
1871 William I of Prussia had been proclaimed G3rman Em- 
peror. The short-lived German Empire had had in reality but 




The " Big Four." 
Lloyd George, Orlando, Clemenceau, Wilson. 



two emperors : William I, who established it under the guidance 
of Bismarck, and William II, who lost it in aiming at world 
dominion. The treaty was finally ratified on July 7 by the 
German National Assembly sitting at Weimar.^ 

433. Position of Great Britain after the "War. — By the 
treaty of peace Great Britain and her dominions secured im- 
portant accessions of territory, either in the form of actual 

1 Austria made peace with the Allies, September 10, 1919 ; Bulgaria, 
November 27, 1919 ; Hungary, June 4, 1920 ; and Turkey, August 10, 1920. 



454 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1919 

additions or as " mandataries," that is, territories which they 
held in a sort of trusteeship. Australia received certain islands 
in the Pacific, south of the Equator ; New Zealand, Germany's 
part of Samoa ; the Union of South Africa, German Southwest 
Africa ; Great Britain herself, parts of Togoland and Kanierun, 
and, as a mandate, the greater part of German East Africa, 
which she renamed Tanganyika Territory. Two small prov- 
inces in the northwest, adjacent to the Congo, were assigned as 
a mandate to Belgium. During the war, when Turkey was the 
ally of Germany, Great Britain had abrogated all Turkish 
rights in Egypt, and on December 18, 1914, had declared that 
land a British protectorate. Shortly before, November 5, she 
had formally annexed Cyprus, and in 1919 by agreement brought 
Persia within her sphere of influence. Thus the territorial range 
of the empire was materially increased and, especially in Africa, 
to its advantage, for by the mandate of German East Africa 
Great Britain secured control of a section of African land that 
in German hands had blocked her path from Egypt southward 
to Cape Town and prevented her from completing her Cape to 
Cairo railway. 

More important even than accessions of territory was the 
effect of the war upon the Empire itself. The shock of German 
attack, instead of breaking the empire into pieces, had welded 
it together more firmly than before. The response of the 
colonies to the mother's call disclosed two things : first, that the 
loyalty to the mother land of all parts of the British world 
was deep-seated and unshakable ; and secondly, that the 
" empire " was in reality not an empire at all, but a partnership 
of nations, each of which had poured out its blood and treasure, 
not because of any binding obligation to do so, but because of 
pride in the connection with Britain and of devotion to the 
ideals and purposes that were common to all members of the 
British world. 

434. Attitude toward Egypt and India. — The strength of the 
British Empire lay in its elasticity and adaptability. Freedom 



1920] ATTITUDE TOWARD EGYPT AND INDIA. 455 

and local self-government for all those peoples that were ready 
were the foundations upon which it was built, and with these 
principles unimpaired, there was no inclination among the great 
dominions to sever their connection with the mother country. 
The sense of a common historical past, the feeling of kinship, 
and the realization of strength in unity formed unbreakable 
bonds. 

That the British government was prepared to extend the 
privilege of self-government to any of its colonies, dependencies, 
or protectorates that was competent to exercise it, became evi- 
dent after the war. In 1919 it conferred upon Malta the 
right to govern itself, and in 1920, on the recommendation of 
the Milner commission, appointed to consider the situation in 
Egypt, began negotiations looking to the independence of that 
country and the drafting of a constitution which should 
define the powers of the Khedive and of a responsible native 
ministry and assembly. Under the new arrangement England 
herself was to retain such privileges as would safeguard the 
merchants, protect the Suez Canal, and defend Egypt against 
foreign aggression. 

Toward India its attitude was extremely sympathetic. Al- 
ready had Sir Edward Montagu, the colonial secretary, and Lord 
Chelmsford, the viceroy of India, in a remarkable report, recom- 
mended a form of modified home rule for that country, whereby 
native Indians should be associated with every branch of the 
Indian administration. The signal service of Indian princes 
and people to the empire during the war revealed a temper and 
loyalty so marked that in 1919 the British government deter- 
mined at once to extend self-government as far as it was possible 
and desirable to do so, with the idea of granting gradually but 
eventually responsible government similar to that exercised by 
the dominions. In 1917 commissions were issued to Indian 
officers who had served with distinction in the war, and in 1919 
a bill was passed by parliament and became a law whereby the 
voters in India were increased from 33,000 to 5,179,000, and a 



456 THE EMPIRE AND THE GREAT WAR. [1920 

considerable measure of self-governmeut granted. The old 
absolute control was abolished, a new era for India opened, and 
that dependency took its place as an integral member of the 
British commonwealth of nations, and was represented in all 
imperial conferences, with an adequate voice in foreign policy 
and foreign relations. 

435. New Status of the British Empire. — Great Britain had 
emerged from the war the strongest naval and colonial power in 
the world, knit together in all its parts with a strength tested by 
mutual suffering, loss, and bitter conflict. It was no longer an 
empire, but a commonwealth of nations, in which the mother 
country stood to the great dominions and India, not as a superior 
or even as a head but as a senior partner in a great cooperative 
system. During the war the imperial conference, which had 
already met six times (1887, 1897, 1902, 1907, 1909, 1911) 
was enlarged as an Imperial War Conference, and side, by side 
with the War Cabinet arose an Imperial War Cabinet for the 
consideration of matters concerning the empire as a whole. 
Upon both these boards sat representatives of the dominions 
and of India. Thus the unity of this widely scattered British 
world was preserved by two institutions common to all : first, 
by the hereditary kingship, approval of which was manifested 
during the war by expressions of loyalty to King George and 
after the war by demonstrations of welcome to his son, the Prince 
of Wales, who in 1919 and 1920 made a tour of all parts of the 
empire and even visited the United States ; and, secondly, by a 
system of conferences, the character and functions of which 
were still to be worked out, where either in an imperial com- 
mittee or imperial cabinet the common welfare of the whole 
British world would be preserved. Thus the British Empire 
entered upon a new era in its history. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

436. General Remarks. — There are different types of 
government prevailing among the more important territories 
that to-day make up what is known as the British Empire. 
First and most important of all is the government of the 
United Kingdom, which has its seat at Westminster. The 
form of government there is determined by law and tradition. 
In the United States the constitution can be amended only 
in. accord with the terms laid down in the written document 
itself; in Great Britain it can be altered at any time and 
in any way by parliament, which has power to repeal any act 
that it pleases, and to pass another that may be quite different. 
It can legislate for all things, great or small — disestablish the 
Church of England or grant Home Rule to Ireland, regulate 
the shipping of poultry or determine the wages of seamen. 

In another respect does the British constitution differ from 
that of the United States. The latter, intentionally and pre- 
cisely, separates the functions of government into three dis- 
tinct parts — executive, legislative, and judicial, — but in the 
British system no such distinction prevails. For instance, 
the king, who is the chief executive, has legislative duties, which 
though formal are so important that no bill can become law 
without his assent; the cabinet, which is executive in origin 
and continues to be executive in many of its functions, has 
become the chief legislative factor in parliament, since no bill 
can pass without its approval; the ministers of the crown, 
whose duties are executive and administrative, sit in parliament 
and are responsible to it rather than to the king ; the House of 
Lords, which is a legislative body, exercises very important 

457 



458 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.. 

judicial functions ; the Privy Council, an executive body, 
has its judicial committee, the highest court of appeal in the 
empire. Thus the three groups of powers, instead of being 
separated, are closely interwoven. 

As was to be expected from such a history, the British con- 
stitutional system is full of survivals, contradictions, and irregu- 
larities. The king never does most of the things that he is 
legally entitled to do. The prime minister and the cabinet do 
any number of things for which they have no legal warrant. 
Many ministers bearing official titles do not perform the duties 
suggested by these titles ; for example, the first lord of the treas- 
ury is rarely a lord and though nominally the ultimate head of 
the financial system, has in fact nothing to do with finance, 
and the chancellor of the exchequer, the real minister of finance, 
is not a chancellor and the "exchequer" of which he once was 
the chancellor was abolished eighty years ago. There are 
" boards " the members of which never sit, such as the Board 
of Education and the Local Government Board. Parliament 
has on its order book many rules which are never enforced, 
such as concern strangers and the publishing of debates,^ and 
though unable to provide room in the chamber of the House of 
Commons for more than 350 members has lately increased its 
membership to 707. In some ways most interesting of all is the 
survival of the old Anglo-Norman phrases used in the formal 
procedure of the houses. In assenting to a bill the king still 
uses the words Le Roy le veuU and when a bill is ready to be 
sent from the Commons to the Lords, the phrase is Soit bailie 
aux seigneurs} Privileges for which members fought and 

1 Harry Furniss, the caricature artist of Punch, once said that in his day 
parliament was so full of red tape that a man might have a seat in the re- 
porter's gallery for an obscure journal that had ceased to exist for thirty 
years, while prominent papers were given no seat at all. 

^ Should the king ever veto a bill, as is never likely to be the case, he 
would express his dissent in the phrase Le Roy s'avisera. Other phrases 
are A ceste bille avesque des amendemens les seignieurs sont assentus or A ces 
amendemens les communes sont assentus. Assent to a private bill is phrased 
Soit fait comme il est desire and to a petition of right (as in 1628, § 244) 



THE KING. 459 

suffered in the past have, with the decHne of monarchy, lost 
all their, meaning ; forms of procedure which once had real 
significance are now mere matters of clerical routine ; and many 
incidents and practices continue to survive to-day for no other 
reason than the Britisher's love of precedent and dislike of 
change. Yet it is the existence of just these little peculiarities, 
these unexpected contradictions between theory and practice, 
and these differences between the outward seeming and the actual 
fact that gives to the study of the British constitution a great 
deal of its fascination and charm. 

437. The King. — George V sits upon the throne of Eng- 
land by virtue of the Act of Settlement of 1701 (§ 309, at end), 
and had he no sons his daughter could succeed him at his death 
and exercise as queen of England all the royal powers. He 
became king in 1910 immediately on the death of his father, 
Edward VII, for Great Britain legally cannot be without a 
king for an instant of time, but his coronation did not follow 
for more than a year. Theoretically and legally he has wide 
powers, both at home and over the self-governing dominions, 
but actually he can of his own independent will perform no 
constitutional functions whatever — all must be done on the 
advice of his ministers. 

Constitutionally speaking, the king is so bound up with the 
British system of government that to abolish monarchy in 
England would lead to endless confusion. It would also affect 
the relations with the outlying dominions and dependencies, 
for the royal office is the only permanent feature of the British 
Empire. As an institution the king is therefore one of the most 
important and necessary parts of the British system. But as a 
person he stands in a different position. In that capacity he 
can exercise influence but not power or authority, and the ex- 
tent of his influence is likely to vary with his character and 

Soil droit fait cpmme il est desire. Assent to a money bill reads Le Roy 
remerQie ses bons sujets, accepts leur benevolence, et ainsi le veult. It is odd 
that Lords and Commons should spell " seign{i\eurs" differently. 



460 THE GOVERNMENT OF .THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 

strength of will. Queen Victoria, by acknowledgment of all, 
had a very definite influence upon governmental policy ; ^ King 
Edward's influence, as has already been noted (§ 401), lay 
chiefly in the field of foreign relations ; while that of George V, 
owing to the faithfulness with which he has performed his 
recognized duties, — ceremonial and social, — and to the sym- 
pathetic interest which he has displayed in the work and wel- 
fare of all his people, has increased very much popular respect 
for the monarchy. 

438. The Privy Council. — The Privy Council, which in 
origin is older than parliament, used to be the king's advisory 
body, acting in conjunction with him as the executive head 
of the government, but now its place as adviser of the crown 
has been acquired by the cabinet. It is composed of as many 
natural born or naturalized British subjects as the king de- 
sires to summon, and among them are always the members of 
the cabinet, who in order to hold office must be privy coun- 
cilors. The number is undefined, but at present is nearly 300, 
peers and commoners. In nearly all cases membership is an 
honor, which carries with it no duties. Except on special occa- 
sions, such as occur at the beginning of a reign, when all the mem- 
bers assemble to hear the new king's first message, the whole 
body never meets. Membership carries with it the title of 
" Right Honorable " and the privilege of invitation (with wives 
and unmarried daughters) to royal balls, concerts, and analogous 
state functions. The members, when in official attendance, 

1 Several instances of this may be given. In 1851 the queen in a memo- 
randum to Lord Palmerston insisted that drafts of all dispatches should 
be submitted to her in sufficient time for her to read them and that they 
should not be altered after they had received her sanction. We are told 
that the bill disestablishing the Irish Church (1869) was probably saved 
by the queen's intervention, though she personally disliked it, because she 
believed it expressed the will of the country. We know also that in 1871, 
Gladstone, unable to obtain the passage of the bill abolishing purchase of 
commissions in the army, advised the queen to make use of her prerogative 
and abolish the purchase system by royal warrant. This the queen did, 
revoking the warrant of 1683 recognizing the practice and issuing another, 
doing away with it. 



THE KING'S MINISTERS AND DEPARTMENTS. 461 

wear a very smart diplomatic costume of blue and gold, with a 
cocked hat, an obligation that made trouble with his party 
for John Burns, labor member for Battersea, when as presi- 
dent of the Local Government Board (1905-1914) he became a 
privy councilor and a member of the cabinet. 

439. The King's Ministers and Departments. — The king 
has certain high officials of state and many subordinate officials 
for the performance of executive and administrative business 
and the carrying on of the government of the United Kingdom. 
They may be divided into two classes, temporary and perma- 
nent. In the first class are the highest officials — heads of de- 
partments, whose position is political and who change whenever 
a government is overthrown and a new government comes in. 
In that respect they are similar to the members of the presi- 
dent's cabinet in the United States. Immediately under them 
are parliamentary subordinates or under-secretaries, who also 
change with the government. In the second class are those 
officials whose tenure is permanent, whose interests are purely 
administrative, and whose lives are spent in the government 
offices in Whitehall and elsewhere. They are the secretaries 
and clerks who perform, ably and efficiently, the departmental 
duties assigned them and who take no part in politics or parlia- 
ment. 

The most important ministers and departments of the crown 
are as follows : 

The Lord High Chancellor. He is the oldest of all the king's 
ministers in service, the principal adviser of the crown, and the 
keeper of the great seal. By time-honored custom he has ac- 
quired the right to sit on the woolsack in the House of Lords 
and to exercise there some of the functions assigned to the 
speaker in the House of Commons. 

The Treasury. Formerly the Treasury was a deliberative 
board made up of the first lord, the chancellor of the exchequer, 
and three junior lords, who had regular meetings and kept 
minutes. But now the first lord has gone into politics and is 



462 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

usually the prime minister, the junior lords have also gone into 
politics and are to-day government " whips," performing very 
important duties connected with the business of the House of 
Commons (§ 442), and onl}^ the chancellor of the exchequer 
is left, as a kind of second lord of the Treasury, to serve as 
minister of finance. 

The Admiralty. The Admiralty Board, unlike that of the 
Treasury, still sits as a deliberative body. As the Treasury, 
through the chancellor of the exchequer, wields the powers and 
functions of the old Lord High Treasurer, so the Admiralty, 
as a board, wields the powers and functions of the old Lord 
High Admiral. Remodeled in 1904, this board now consists 
of a first lord, four sea lords, and a civil lord. The first 
lord, who is always a navy man, is in reality a secretary 
of the navy and is held responsible by parliament for the 
conduct of his department, while the others serve as his ad- 
visers. They have administrative duties also, for the over- 
sight of naval affairs is distributed among the sea lords and the 
civil lord. 

The War Office. The War Office has in the past undergone 
many important changes, the earlier phases of which need not 
concern us here. In 1904, after long consideration, the office of 
commander-in-chief was abolished and the control of the army 
was intrusted to an Army Council, similar in form to the Ad- 
miralty Board, presided over by the secretary of state for war 
and consisting of six leading army officers, one of whom is the 
chief of staff. The secretary of state for war, though histori- 
cally and constitutionally very different from the first lord of 
the Admiralty — because he is a secretary of state, and not the 
head of a board — is in fact very similar in obligations and func- 
tions to that official — a secretary of war as the other is a secre- 
tary of the navy. He is usually a civilian, and Lord Kitchener 
was the first military officer to hold the position. 

The Secretariat. There are five principal secretaries of state, 
one each for home affairs, foreign affairs, war, the colonies, and 



THE KING'S MINISTERS AND DEPARTMENTS. 463 

India. Legally, these five ministers perform the duties of one 
office — that of his majesty's principal secretary of state, — and 
whenever by act of parliament their duties are increased, they 
are rarely referred to by name, business being assigned to them 
collectively, apparently on the supposition that each is com- 
petent to do the work of any of the others. Actually, however, 
they constitute five distinct departments, the duties of which 
are well understood, and they are served by permanent staffs 
of secretaries, assistants, clerks, and other officials, housed 
each in its own quarters in Whitehall. 

The Foreign Office looks after foreign affairs and has control 
of protectorates, wherever found. The Colonial Office has in 
its hands the management of those parts of the Empire that 
are designated " crown colonies," as contrasted with dominions 
and protectorates. The India Office is concerned with India, 
and its secretary differs from the others in having an advisory 
council — the Council of India, consisting of from ten to four- 
teen salaried members, two of whom are native Indians, — which 
is a consultative body in all matters not requiring urgency or 
secrecy. Except in recommending changes in the government 
of India and embodying such changes in a bill to be introduced 
into parliament, neither the secretary nor parliament has much 
direct part in Indian control, such being left to the viceroy 
and the officials in India itself (§ 446). Lastly, we have The 
Home Office, under whose direction is a vast and somewhat 
miscellaneous body of domestic activities. The home secre- 
tary is the chief channel of communication between the king and 
his subjects of the LTnited Kingdom, he receives addresses and 
petitions, has charge of naturalization and extradition, man- 
ages the police (except those of the City of London), regulates 
factories, mines, collieries, inebriates, and burial grounds, 
inspects reformatories, industrial schools, and prisons, and 
even keeps watch over vivisection and cruelty to animals. 
Under him are not only the usual departmental officials but 
a great many special commissioners and inspectors also. 



464 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 

Boards. In addition there are many boards, so called, though 
each is controlled by a single official ■^- its president — and 
never meets as a board. These are The Board of Works, which 
has charge of the construction and maintenance of parks, 
palaces, and many public buildings ; The Board of Trade, which 
supervises everything that concerns trade and locomotion by 
land and sea and under which is Trinity House, a famous and 
ancient institution, which looks after navigation, lighthouses, 
buoys, and beacons ; The Local Government Board, which has 
general oversight of the poor law, public health, and other 
local government matters ; The Board of Agriculture, which 
has to do with commons, allotments, drainage, forestry, horti- 
culture, fisheries, the muzzling of dogs, and contagious diseases 
among animals; and lastly, The Board of Education, which has 
charge of all schools that receive public aid. 

The Post Office. The post office is one of the most important 
of all the public departments, and because it brings in a large 
revenue to the state is under the control of the Treasury. But 
it is more than a source of income, it is a great administering 
organization as well. Its duties are carefully prescribed by 
statute, and the postmaster-general, who is the parliamentary 
head, has comparatively little discretion except in minor matters. 
He is in fact the acting manager of a great business, with the 
secretary of the department as the man in immediate charge, 
and he is accountable to parliament for his administration. 
Under his direction are the transmission of all mail matter, 
including the parcels post ; savings bank business, which allows 
deposits of a shilling and upwards and pays interest; postal 
orders and money orders ; postal telegraph and telephones. 
Through its savings department the post office has built up a 
very elaborate life insurance and annuity business. 

440. The Cabinet. — "A certain number of these high of- 
ficers of state constitute the ' cabinet ' and those with others 
are said to constitute the ' ministry,' neither of which is known 
to the law." Thus wrote Maitland in 1888, and what he said 



THE CABINET. 465 

then is largely true to-day. The cabinet is not provided for 
by any statute and never has received formal recognition as a 
part of the British constitution/ its members are not paid for 
their services as cabinet ministers, its meetings are irregular 
and unscheduled, no record is kept of its business or discus- 
sions, its proceedings are never published, and it has no powers 
that are legally defined. Yet it is the most powerful executive 
and legislative influence in Great Britain to-day. At its head is 
the prime minister, who occupies a position more dominating 
than that of any other of the king's subjects and is selected by 
the king either because of his ability to lead the political party 
to which he belongs, which must be the majority party in 
parliament, or because of the public opinion of the country at 
large. 

The prime minister selects his colleagues, though the king 
actually appoints them, and he can call for their resignations 
in the same way. His resignation has a little history of its 
own. Before 1832 he rarely felt obliged to resign because of 
an adverse vote in parliament ; after 1832 and until 1867 he 
would have resigned only in case the adverse vote was formal, 
that is to say, a test vote which showed on the part of the 
members of parliament a lack of confidence in him as their 
leader ; after 1867 and until 1906 he would have been expected 
to resign if any vote in parliament went against him ; and 
since 1906 he has resigned, even with a parliamentary majority 
in his favor, when it was evident that the sentiment of the 
country was against him. 

The officers of state who are always in the cabinet are the 
secretaries of state, the first lord of the Treasury, the lord high 
chancellor, the chancellor of the exchequer, the first lord of the 
Admiralty, and usually the lord privy seal. The prime minister 

1 Official recognition of the prime minister was first given in 1906, when 
by royal warrant his place in processions and ceremonial functions was 
fixed as fourth in the list, after the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord 
High Chancellor, and the Archbishop of York. Consequently Sir Henry 
Campbell-Bannerman is sometimes spoken of as the ' first ' prime minister. 



466 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 

himself has commonly held the office of first lord of the Treas- 
ury, but Gladstone was chancellor of th« exchequer and Salis- 
bury secretary of state for foreign affairs. As to the remain- 
ing members practice varies somewhat, but among them one is 
almost sure to find the president of the council, the presidents of 
the Local Government Board, Board of Trade, Board of Educa- 
tion, and Board of Agriculture, the attorney-general, post- 
master-general, and the chief secretaries for Scotland and 
Ireland. Altogether there may be twenty or more in the cabinet 
and fifty or more in the ministry. The legal standing of all 
these officials depends not on their position as members of the 
cabinet or ministry but on their membership in the Privy Coun- 
cil, while their salaries are paid them for their services not as 
cabinet ministers but as officials under government. 

The strength of the cabinet is to be found not only in its es- 
tablished position as the central feature of the government, 
but also in the peculiar position which it occupies in that gov- 
ernment. It is executive in character, in that it controls and 
guides the legal executive (the king and Privy Council), and- it 
has among its members the chiefs of the great executive de- 
partments. At the same time its members sit in the legislature, 
that is, in parliament, and are responsible to it. Herein lies the 
difference between the British and the American systems. The 
members of the president's cabinet in the United States do not 
sit in Congress ; but every one of the king's ministers must have 
a seat in one or other of the houses of parliament. Two re- 
sults follow : (1) these ministers are able in person to present 
their policies and defend the administration of their depart- 
ments and (2) they are able to control the party machinery 
and hold their followers, that is, the majority, in allegiance. 

441. The House of Lords. — The House of Lords, which is 
commonly designated the second chamber, is composed of about 
680 members, including royal princes (3), archbishops (2), 
dukes (19), marquesses (29), earls (121), viscounts (58), bish- 
ops (24), barons (377), Scottish peers (16), and Irish peers 



HOUSE OF COMMONS. 467 

(28). There are also four judicial life peers, who sit to hear 
appeals from the common law courts. They are created peers 
for life, for their judgments are the judgments of the House of 
Lords sitting in its judicial capacity. At their head is the lord 
high chancellor, and to their number are added such hereditary 
peers as have held high judicial office. 

The lord high chancellor, who is the speaker of the House of 
Lords, sits on the historic woolsack, a large red cushion stuffed 
with wool, without arms or back, but with a central back-rest, 
which has no platform but rests upon the floor of the house, 
in front of the royal thrones. As the keeper of the great seal, 
an office now always held by the lord high chancellor, may be a 
commoner, the woolsack is technically outside the limits of the 
house, so that when the chancellor is a peer and wishes to take 
part in debate he must step forward within the precincts of the 
house and occupy his place as a peer. As speaker he has but 
few powers : he has nothing to do with debate or the main- 
tenance of order, the peers never address their remarks to him 
but to their fellows, and while his advice would be listened to 
with respect it need not be followed and he has no power to de- 
cide questions of procedure or to control in any way the con- 
duct of the house. 

442. House of Commons. — The House of Commons con- 
sists of 707 members, elected, under the conditions laid down by 
the Reform Act of 1918, by about 21,000,000 voters, of which 
number more than 8,000,000 are women (§§ 407, 408). The 
idea that each member should represent a single electoral dis- 
trict, which was put in practice by the Distribution Act of 1885, 
has now been discarded, and by the Act of 1918 the old method 
of representation by boroughs and counties has again been 
adopted with some modifications. The House of Commons 
sits for five years, unless in the meantime the prime minister 
appeals to the country, as he is likely to do, in which case a 
new election would have to be held. The house must assemble 
every year for three reasons : first, in order to pass the Army 



468 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 

Bill providing for the maintenance of the standing army, which 
technically exists only from year to year ; secondly, to renew the 
Ballot Act, which provides for secret ballot in parliamentary elec- 
tions and which, for some strange reason, remains in force for one 
year only ; and thirdly, to vote the annual supply to the crown. ^ 
The powers of parliament are threefold : 

1. Supervisory, the oversight of administration as conducted 
by ministers and departments. This power is not much exer- 
cised to-day, but it is still possessed, for parliament can at any 
time call a minister to account. 

2. Inquisitorial, the investigation, through parliamentary 
committees, of matters of public importance, a frequent activity 
that often leads to the framing and passing of bills. The re- 
ports of these committees, when printed, as they usually are, 
go into the Parliament Blue Books (so called from the color of 
their covers) and become very valuable sources of information. 

3. Legislative, the passing of laws, the most important 
business with which parliament has to deal, and a function 
now controlled mainly by the House of Commons. 

The two most important persons in the House of Commons 
are the prime minister and the speaker. The greatly increased 

1 Originally the king was expected to meet his expenses from his own 
resources, but in 1660 Charles II gave up all his feudal claims (§ 55) and in 
1760 George III gave up nearly all the crown lands to the nation. After 
the latter date parliament came into control of nearly all the old hereditary 
revenues of the crown. In return it granted George III a fixed amount 
for the expenses of himself and his household, known as the ' civil list,' 
which in 1777 amounted to £900,000. The amount actually paid, however, 
came to more than this sum, for the extravagances of George III and George 
IV and the many public charges that were made against the civil list caused 
huge deficits that had to be met by parliament. Little by little the public 
charges were assumed by the government and the civil list reduced. Ed- 
ward VII received £470,000 and George V receives the same every year. 
Provision for other members of the royal family comes to £146,000 more. 
These sums seem large, yet it must be remembered that parliament made a 
very good bargain when it took over the crown lands in exchange for a civil 
list, for the income from these lands to-day amounts to more than the sum 
granted the king, £520,000 as over against £470,000. In addition the 
king receives about £87,000 from the Duchy of Lancaster and the Prince of 
Wales about £80,000 from the Duchy of Cornwall, the only royal lands now 
remaining in the hands of the crown. 



HOUSE OF COMMONS. 469 

influence of the prime minister is due largely to the fact that 
governnaent business, that is, measures which the prime minister 
and his colleagues originate, is not only given the right of way 
but is allowed a far greater amount of time than is granted to 
bills introduced by private members. In this sense the prime 
minister may be said to control the legislative activity of the 
House of Commons. The influence of the speaker is due, in 
chief part, to the control which he exercises over the procedure 
of the House of Commons. 

The speaker sits in a gorgeous chair at the end of a narrow but 
impressive room, high ceilinged and ornate, in which twelve 
rows of leather-cushioned benches, rising one above another, 
six to a side, extend facing each other down the length of the 
room. The plan is that of an English chapel and is modeled 
after the interior of St. Stephen's Chapel, in which the house 
sat for 300 years, until the building was burned down in 1834. 
It is admirably contrived for a two-party system, the govern- 
ment on one side and the opposition on the other, and is spe- 
cially suited for comparatively small numbers and informal 
debate. But it is not so well adapted to conditions as they 
are to-day, when there are many party groups and large 
numbers. 

In considering the business of the House of Commons, one must 
distinguish between a parliament, a session, and a sitting. A 
parliament includes a number of sessions, a session, many sit- 
tings.^ A parliament ends with a dissolution, a session with a 
prorogation, a sitting with an adjournment. The first and 
second are acts of the king, on the advice of his ministers, the 
third, the act of the House of Commons itself. 

Bills are usually introduced by the government, but certain 
times in the week are set aside for any business that private 
members may wish to bring forward. When a bill is intro- 
duced it is read by a clerk and there is no debate. This con- 
stitutes the first reading. On a given day it is read a second 

* The longest session on record lasted from March, 1893, to March, 1894. 



470 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 

time, and then ensues considerable discussion for and against 
the principle involved. If the bill passes the second reading, 
it is taken up in the " committee of the whole house," which 
is merely the house without the speaker, sitting under a chair- 
man and governed by different rules of debate and procedure. 
If the bill is reported favorably out of committee, it passes to 
its third reading, and at this stage is likely to meet with a good 
deal of opposition, particularly if amendments have been 
added. In case the bill passes the third reading, it is sent to 
the House of Lords and there similarly dealt with. Should a 
bill originate in the House of Lords the same procedure would 
be followed in reverse order. When a bill has duly passed 
both houses, it is sent to the king for his assent, which is to-day 
a mere formality, sometimes given by lords commissioners 
who represent the crown, and sometimes by the king himself, 
though rarely. In either case it is given " in full parliament," 
that is, in the House of Lords with the Commons present. In 
the progress of a bill through the houses the votes after the 
second and third readings or in committee are usually taken 
by means of a division, a method peculiar to the British parlia- 
ment. At the end of the debate the speaker or chairman in 
the House of Commons, or the chancellor in the House of Lords, 
puts the question and tries to determine from the volume of 
sound whether the ayes or the noes have it, but frequently 
without success. If his decision is challenged a division is taken. 
The members file out of the chamber, passing into a lobby on 
the right if they wish to vote " aye," and into one on the left if 
they wish to vote " no." The same procedure is followed in 
ascertaining the opinion of either house on any measure or 
motion, and sometimes the divisions are very frequent,^ con- 
suming a great deal of time, more than does a roll call in an 
American legislature. 

After this brief view of the central government and adminis- 
tration, let us turn to the local system, to discover how far the 

1 In 1909 the House of Commons divided 918 times. 



COUNTIES, DISTRICTS, AND PARISHES. 471 

local governments reflect the principles at work in the larger 
field. 

443. Municipalities. — The first of the local systems to be 
reformed was that of the boroughs or municipalities. In 1833, 
immediately after the passage of the first Reform Bill, a com- 
mittee was appointed to investigate the borough governments, 
and it reported such a bewildering variety of local constitu- 
tions and such a chaos of inefficiency, mismanagement, and 
corruption that, even though it erred in stressing too much the 
abuses it found, it did succeed in starthng parliament into action. 
As a result the famous Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 
was passed to remedy the situation. This act and subsequent 
amendments in all their essential features were embodied in the 
Municipal Corporations Act of 1882, and the simple rule was 
laid down that the burgesses, that is, the people of a borough, 
should have the right to manage their own affairs by means 
of a local body, properly elected. 

444. Counties, Districts, and Parishes. — After the passage 
of the Act of 1882, followed closely by the Reform Act of 1884, 
it was evident to all that changes must be made in the govern- 
ment of the remaining local bodies of the kingdom, and it 
followed naturally that representative democracy, which had 
become the basis of both municipal and central government, 
should become the foundation of parish and county govern- 
ment as well. 

There were four great evils in local government as it existed 
before 1888. First, county government was in the hands of the 
justices of the peace, — the local gentry or country squires, — 
who in no way represented the people of the locality ; and 
parish government was in the hands of local vestries, who 
formed a veritable oligarchy. Secondly, the areas of local 
administration were very confusing. There were the counties, 
the old ecclesiastical parishes, the common law parishes, and the 
poor law parishes. There was the poor law union, made up of a 
group of poor law parishes, which did not coincide with the 



472 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 

county. There were school districts, highway districts, and 
burial districts, all differing in their boundaries. Thirdly, 
there was a chaos of organization : different authorities, such as 
town councils, boards of guardians, highway boards, school 
boards, lighting inspectors, overseers, and the like ; different 
dates of elections, different systems of voting, different tenures 
of office, different qualifications for candidates. Fourthly, 
there was a chaos of finance, that is, of the way in which local 
rates or taxes were paid. 

To bring order out of all this confusion was the work of two 
great acts of local reform, the acts of 1888 and 1894, the first 
reforming the government of the counties, the second of the 
parishes. Their object was to extend to the counties and par- 
ishes the self-governing powers already conferred on the bor- 
oughs. By the Act of 1888 the administrative duties of the 
justices of the peace in the counties were taken away and in- 
trusted to county councils, composed of members chosen di- 
rectly by the rate-payers. London (except the City ^) was 
erected into an administrative county by itself, with its own 
county council, a very impressive body of 154 members, which 
has authority over a wide area, including parts of Middlesex, 
Kent, and Surrey. By the Act of 1894, all parishes (towns or 
villages) with more than 300 inhabitants were to have a parish 
council, elected by all qualified inhabitants, and all parishes 
smaller in size, unless they specially demanded a council, were 
to be governed through parish meetings made up of as many of 
the qualified inhabitants as cared to attend. 

Between the county councils and the parish councils a third 
council was established for areas known as urban or rural 
sanitary districts, composed of groups of parishes. These dis- 

1 The City of London, within the Bars, an area of about a square mile in 
extent, is the oldest institution of its kind in England, and is still governed 
according to its ancient forms. The County of London is 116 square miles 
in extent, with a radius of about 6 miles from Charing Cross. The City of 
London has an annual income of £250,000, the County spends £12,000,000 
a year. 



GOVERNMENT OVERSEAS. 473 

trict councils are popularly elected and have extensive authority 
in such matters as highways, sewers, and drains, removal of 
rubbish, infectious diseases, water supply, and to some extent 
education and the poor law. 

With the exception of an hereditary House of Lords and 
of the City of London, the British institutions of government 
a're everywhere on a representative and democratic basis. 
House of Commons, borough councils, county councils, dis- 
trict councils, and parish councils are all elected by universal 
suffrage. Class rule has been abolished, as far as the law 
and the constitution are concerned, and the only quarter in 
which privilege still lingers is the sphere of local justice, where 
the magistrates or justices of the peace are still occasionally 
men without legal training, though no longer drawn, as 
used to be the case, exclusively from the land -owning classes. 

445. Government Overseas. — As we have already seen 
(§ 412) the British Empire is composed of a variety of parts : 
the dominions are the Dominion of Canada, the Federal 
Commonwealth of Australia, the Union of South Africa, the 
Dominion of New Zealand, and the Colony of Newfoundland. 
Each of these is a state, so large, powerful, progressive, and 
wealthy as to rival other states of the world and so important 
as to obtain (with the exception of Newfoundland and the 
addition of India) independent membership in the League of 
Nations. Each of these states has almost complete control 
of its own affairs, and except for a governor-general appointed 
by the crown is practically supreme within its own borders. 

The Dominion of Canada is composed of nine provinces : 
Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, 
British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Alberta, and Sas- 
katchewan. The governor-general is usually an English peer, 
once indeed of the royal blood, and though named by the king 
and sent out from England is, as executive head of the govern- 
ment, as free from imperial interference as if he had been born 
and appointed in Canada. He selects his own cabinet, which 



474 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 

must represent and have the support of the lower house of the 
Canadian parKament, and he must accept its resignation when- 
ever it loses the confidence of that house. There is no differ- 
ence, as in Great Britain, between the cabinet and the ministry, 
which numbers about twenty. The Dominion parliament, 
which sits at Ottawa, is made up of two houses — a Senate, 
nominated for life by the governor-general, and a House of 




View of Sydney, New South Wales. 

Commons, which is elected by popular suffrage. The members 
of both houses are so named or chosen as to give to each prov- 
ince a proportional share, though in the lower house Quebec 
is always to have 65 representatives. In each of the nine 
provinces there is a lieutenant-governor and a legislature, which 
is a single house in all but Quebec and Nova Scotia, in each 
of which there are two houses. 

The Commonwealth of Australia is composed of New South 
Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, 



GOVERNMENT OVERSEAS. 475 

and Tasmania. These communities differ from the corre- 
sponding divisions of Canada in that they are not provinces 
but states, possessing greater independence and authority, for 
in AustraUa the central government is invested with fewer 
executive and legislative powers than in Canada. The gov- 
ernors of these states are appointed directly by the crown, 
the laws of the states can be vetoed only by their governors 
and not by the federal governor-general, and each state has 
its own agent-general in London, in addition to the high com- 
missioner sent by the commonwealth. In many ways they 
are similar to the states of the United States, particularly in 
possessing under the Australian constitution all powers not 
expressly granted to the federal government. The latter con- 
sists of a governor-general appointed by the crown, a cabinet, 
and two houses, one, the Senate, composed of six senators 
from each state elected by the people, and a House of Repre- 
sentatives, the members of which are also elected by the peo- 
ple in proportion to the population of each state. There are 
local parliaments in each of the states, similarly elected, with 
extensive powers of legislation. The capital, which is not yet 
built, is Canberra, destined to be a city like Washington, set 
apart for federal uses, the corner stone of which was laid by 
the Prince of Wales in 1920. 

The Union of South Africa is composed of four provinces. 
Cape Colony, Natal, Transvaal, and the Orange Free State, 
none of which has a separate governor or legislature or exercises 
any legislative powers. In each province is an executive 
(provincial administrator) with a small executive council, 
both named by the governor-general, and a provincial council, 
which can make ordinances but not laws and, under the di- 
rection of the central government, can control local taxation, 
agriculture, and education. The provinces of South Africa 
have no original authority and so are less independent than 
those of Canada and very much less independent than those of 
Australia. Even within the narrow limits assigned them they 



476 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 

can do only what the higher authority allows them to do and 
their powers can be taken away from them at any time. The 
higher authority consists of the governor-general, appointed by 
the crown, who with an executive council sits at Pretoria, and a 
Senate and House of Assembly which sit at Cape Town. The 
members of the Senate are partly elected and partly nominated, 
— a unique feature, — while the members of the Assembly are 
all elected under a fairly liberal suffrage, from which all blacks 
are debarred except in the Cape Colony. 

The Dominion of New Zealand and the Colony of Newfound- 
land are single communities without provinces, and their gov- 
ernments in all essential particulars are similar to those 
prevailing in the other self-governing dominions. Gov- 
ernor, cabinet, legislative council, and representative assembly 
are the familiar features. New Zealand allows women 
to vote and admits into her House of Representatives four 
deputies from the Maoris, the original inhabitants of the 
islands. 

Dominion Agents in England. Each of the self-governing 
dominions sends to England a dominion agent or high com- 
missioner, whose position is almost that of a colonial ambassador. 
These dominion representatives at the seat of empire enter into 
relations with the British government and with private indi- 
viduals and firms, have business quarters in London that are 
more palatial than some of the foreign embassies, show great 
zeal and energy in encouraging emigration and otherwise push- 
ing the interests of their respective countries, and receive pre- 
ferred treatment at all imperial functions and ceremonies. They 
do a great deal to strengthen the bonds between the mother 
country and the dominions. 

446. India. — The government of India is far too compli- 
cated for more than a very brief consideration here. Some 
features of it have already been discussed (§§ 434, 439). The 
representative of the king-emperor is the viceroy, who with 
an executive council of six and a legislative council of sixty- 



THE CROWN COLONIES. 477 

eight, the latter partly nominated and partly elected and repre- 
senting both British and native interests, sits at Delhi, the 
ancient Mogul capital. The legislative council makes laws for 
the whole of British India, but it has no part in administering 
these laws. Administration lies in the hands of the Indian 
Civil Service, a body of men selected after severe competitive 
examinations from candidates both in the United Kingdom and 
in India. These men spend the best years of their lives in the 
Indian service, and are faithful, efficient, able men. 

447. The Crown Colonies. — There are three groups of 
crown colonies, classed according to their forms of government 
(§ 398). These groups contain all overseas territories of the 
Empire, except dominions and protectorates. Those of the 
colonies that stand highest in the list and form the first group 
have governors appointed by the crown, a council nominated 
by the governor, and an assembly elected by the people. This 
was the form of government possessed by a majority of the 
British colonies in America before the Revolution, and is en- 
joyed to-day by Barbadoes, the Bahamas, and Bermuda, each 
of which has a distinguished historical past.^ In the second 
class are those with an appointed governor, a council, and a 
legislative council, either not elected at all or only partly so. 
In this group are Jamaica, British Guiana, Ceylon, Mauritius, 
Hong Kong, and Cyprus, with legislatures partly elected, 
and Trinidad, Tobago, Straits Settlement, and Sierra Leone, 
where the legislature is not elected but appointed by the gov- 
ernor. In the third group are colonies which are ruled by a 
governor or administrator only, such as Gibraltar and St. Helena. 
All these colonies are under the control of the Colonial Office, 
at the head of which is the secretary of state for the colonies. 

448. Protectorates. — The greatest of the protectorates, 
Egypt, is apparently on the eve of receiving its independence 

^ In this class should probably be placed the island of Malta, which in 
1920 was given a measure of responsible government, to go into effect in 1921. 
For the early history of British rule in Malta, see Lowell, The Government 
of England, II, 413-416. 



478 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 

(§ 434). For thirty-five years (1879-1914) it had been under 
the control first of Great Britain and France and then (1883) 
of Great Britain alone. In 1914 the latter power, renouncing 
the Turkish suzerainty, changed the veiled protectorate into 
an open one. But four years later, 1920, instead of annexing 
the kingdom to the British Empire, she proposed to give the 
Egyptians their independence under certain conditions,^ which 
when accepted would remove that country for the time being at 
least from among the lands under British control. 

The remaining protectorates are in Africa and Asia, and the 
most important among them are the native states of India, which 
manage their own affairs but cannot make war or peace. In 
Africa are Nigeria, Uganda, British East Africa, Nyassaland, 
Somaliland, etc. Some of these, such as Southern Nigeria, 
are almost in the second class of the crown colonies, possess- 
ing legislative and executive councils. Properly speaking, a 
protectorate is not a part of the British Empire, for in most of 
them the native rule is upheld, native rights are maintained, 
and only British subjects resident there come under the authority 
of the secretary of state for foreign affairs. 

Wei-Hai-Wei in China is not a protectorate but a portion of 
Chinese territory leased to Great Britain for a certain number 
of years. Great Britain has jurisdiction there, but China re- 
tains full sovereignty over the territory. 

449. Conclusion. — From this brief survey of the vari- 
ous forms of government prevailing in the British Empire 
it is evident that we have been studying a very remark- 
able state made up in a very remarkable way. There is no 
political organization in the world like it, composed as it is of 
many parts scattered throughout the world, on island and 
continent, differing enormously in size, race, and degree of 
civilization, and representing all sorts and conditions of polit- 

1 Great Britain proposes to place the control of government entirely in 
Egyptian hands and not share it herself with the natives, as is the plan 
provided for in the new Indian government act. 



CONCLUSION. 479 

ical, social, and economic life. The British make no idle 
boast when they point to the success with which they have 
met the problems of empire and to the methods whereby they 
are making it possible for alien races ultimately to govern 
themselves. That in individual instances they have incurred 
hostility and aroused discontent is true, but in a far greater 
number of cases they have won loyalty and enthusiastic sup- 
port. Britain's great gift to the political science of the world 
is the idea of popular sovereignty through representative gov- 
ernment, and her great gift to the political ethics of the world 
is her idea of justice and liberty. Tyranny and slavery do not 
flourish within the bounds of the British Empire. It is the 
identity of these ideas in Great Britain and the United States 
that place these two powers in the very forefront of modern 
civilization. 



BOOKS FOR A SCHOOL LIBRARY 

Geography. Gardiner, Atlas of English History. Longmans. 

Shepherd, Historical Atlas. Holt. 
General Accounts. Gardiner, A Student's History of England to 1919, 
Longmans. 
Green, A Short History of the English People to 1914- Harper. 
Cross, A Shorter History of England and Greater Britain. Mac- 
millan. 
Constitutional. Montague, Elements of English Constitutional His- 
tory. Longmans. 
Pollard, The Evolution of Parliament. Longmans. 
Ilbert, Parliament. Holt. Home University Library. 
Economic. Tickner, A Social and Industrial History of England. 
Longmans. 
Cressy, Brief Sketch of Social and Industrial History. Mac- 
millan. 
Religions. Wakeman, Introduction to the History of the Church of Eng- 
land. Macmillan. 
Colonial. Hawke, The British Empire and Its History. Murray. 

Hughes, Britain and Greater Britain in the Nineteenth Century. 

Cambridge University Press. 
Curry, British Colonial Policy, 1783-1915. Oxford University 
Press. 
Genealogy. George, Genealogical Tables Illustrative of Modern His- 
tory. Fifth edition. Clarendon Press. 
Source Books. Kendall, Source-Book of English History. Macmillan. 
Cheyney, Readings in English History. Ginn. 
English History Illustrated from Original Sources. Nine vol- 
umes. Black. 
English History Source-Books. Seventeen volumes. Bell. 



480 



INDEX. 



The references are to sections. 



Aberdeen, Prime Minister, 370, 375. 

Acts. See Statutes. 

Addington, Prime Minister, 351. 

Admiralty Courts, 193, 439. 

JElfrith, king of Deira, 16. 

.ffithelbirht, king of Kent, accepts 
Christianity, 19, 20 ; establishes 
first monastery in England, 25 ; 
power of, 26 ; laws of, 36. 

iEthelred, king of Wessex, and the 
Danes, 31, 34. 

.ffithelred the Redeless, king of 
England, power of, 53 ; and the 
Danes, 54 note ; heirs of, 58, 59. 

.ffithelstan, king of Wessex, 38. 

Afghanistan, wars in, 385, 388. 

Africa, colonies in, 287, 304, 378, 385, 
388, 393, 398. 

Agincourt, battle of, 171, 200. 

Agricola, in Britain, 8 ; wall of, 8 
note. 

Agriculture in England, effect of 
climate on, 5, 6 ; under Romans, 9 ; 
Anglo-Saxon, 12, 46-49, 51; and 
monasteries, 25 ; importance of, 
93, 127 ; effects of manorial system 
on, 151, 152; effects of Black 
Death, 153 ; changes in, 158, 159 ; 
enclosures, 184, 185 ; attempts to 
check enclosures, 192, 196, 213; 
under Elizabeth, 231, 245 ; in nine- 
teenth century, 360, 392, 400. 

Aidan, at Lindisfarne, 21, 28. 

Aids, feudal, defined, 90 note, 92 ; 
payment of, to Richard I, 105 ; reg- 
ulated by Magna Carta, 112; by 
Edward I, 131 ; revived by Henry 
VII, 194; by James I, 249; by 
Charles I, 262 ; abolished by Con- 
vention, 283. 



Aix-la-Chapelle, treaty of, 324, 327, 
329. 

Albert, prince consort, 369, 374, 
379. 

Albert, king of Belgium, 416; 430. 

Alcuin, 25. 

Alexander I, of Russia, 355. 

Alfred the Great, and the Danes, 
31-35 ; character, 32, 37 ; Guth- 
rum's Peace, 34 ; work in Wessex, 
36 ; death, 36 ; power of, 41, 42 ; 
house of, 68, 79. 

Alma, battle of the, 375. 

America, Cabot in, 196 ; Drake in, 
235; Puritan colonies, 242, 250, 
261, 276; Dutch and English in, 
287 ; Charles II encourages colo- 
nization in, 292 ; French and Eng- 
lish in, 304, 315, 316, 324, 327-332 ; 
policy of ministry toward, 335- 
339 ; war against colonies, 340— 
342; other colonies in, 378, 398. 
See also Canada and United States. 

American Revolution, 340-342. 

Amiens, Mise of, 124, 125. 

Amiens, Peace of, 351. 

Angevins, 85-164. 

Angles, in Britain, 10, 15, 16; on 
Continent, 11. See Anglo-Saxons. 

Anglicans. See Church of England. 

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 14, 15, 29, 
30, 36, 39, 52, 84. 

Anglo-Saxons, 7 ; conquest of Britain 
by, 8-18; first home, 11; organ- 
ization, 12 ; knowledge of Britain, 
13; conquest, 15-16 ; converted to 
Christianity, 19-25 ; attacked by 
Danes, 26-37 ; institutions of, 41- 
52 ; decline of power, 53-63 ; Nor- 
man conquest, 64-77. 



481 



482 



INDEX. 



The references are to sections. 



Anjou, 85, 108. 

Annates, payment of, abolished, 204, 
219. 

Anne, daughter of James II, 300, 301 ; 
becomes queen, 313-318. 

Anne Boleyn, 202-205, 212. 

Anselm, and William Rufus, 78 ; and 
Henry I, 79; investiture struggle, 
81. 

Anzacs, 419. 

Apology of House of Commons to 
James I, 249, 258. 

Apprentices, Statute of, 231, 262 
note. 

Aquitaine, 85. 

Arbitration, in Trent affair, 379 ; 
era of, begins, 393, 401. 

Architecture of Cathedrals, 122, 150, 
190. 

Argonne, 430. 

Argyle, uprising of, in Scotland, 271. 

Armada, Spanish, 238, 239, 246. 

Arms, Assize of. See Assize of Arms. 

Army, Anglo-Saxon, 12 ; under Al- 
fred, 36 ; and shiremot, 44 ; of 
Harold, 66,. 67 ; feudal, 70, 72, 77 ; 
scutage, 92, 93 ; Assize of Arms, 
100 ; reforms of Edward I, 131 ; in 
Hundred Years' War, 149, 171 ; 
Cromwell's, 271-273, 278 ; depend- 
ent on Parliament, 301 ; reorgan- 
ization of, 382, 400, 420, 429. 

Arthur, king of the Britons, 16 note. 

Arthur of Brittany, 108. 

Arthur, son of Henry VII, 195. 

Asquith, 404, 405, 408, 410 ; 423. 

Assize, defined, 99 note ; of Claren- 
don, 99 ; of Northampton, 99 ; of 
Arms, 100, 131, 149. 

Atbara, battle of, 394. 

Athelney, 33. 

Augsburg, league of, 300, 304. 

Augustine, in England, 19, 25. 

Austerlitz, battle of, 354. 

Australia, discovery of, 343 ; coloni- 
zation of, 378 ; federation of, 395, 
398; 445. 

Austria, relations of, with England, 
324-329, 347, 350, 354, 357, 374, 
384, 393 ; in the Great War, 414 ; 
415 ; 431 ; 432 note. 



Austrian. Succession, war of, 324- 

327. 

Bacon, Sir Francis, impeached, 255. 

Bacon, Roger, inventions of, 120 
note. 

Bseda, 20, 20 note ; writings of, 24, 
25, 36. 

Balaklava, battle of, 375. 

Balkans in the Great War, 414 ; 420 ; 
423; 428; 431. 

Ball, John, 160. 

Balliol, John, in Scotland, 135, 137 ; 
Edward, 145. 

Balliol College, Oxford, 157. 

Bank of England, 311. 

Bannockburn, battle of, 142, 143. 

Barebone Parliament, 278, 280. 

Barnet, battle of, 177. 

Barons, feudal, rise of, 87 ; restrained 
by Henry II, 89-92, 99, 100 ; re- 
volt of, 97, 98 ; and Richard I, 106 ; 
and John, 109-111, 114; resistance 
to Henry III, 123-128; and 
Edward I, 131, 133, 139; and 
Edward II, 143 ; in parliament, 
147, 162; and Richard II, 162- 
164 ; under Lancastrians, 170, 173 ; 
Yorkists, 177, 178. 

Barons' War, 125-129. 

Batavian Republic, 347, 351. 

Battle of the Nations, 357. 

Bayeux Tapestry, 67. 

Bayonne, 154. 

Beaconsfield (Benjamin Disraeli), 
Earl of, 370 ; and the new Conserv- 
ative party, 380 ; and Second Re- 
form Bill, 381 ; imperial policy of, 
382-383 ; Congress of BerUn, 384 ; 
defeat of, 385. 

Becket, Thomas a. Archbishop of 
Canterbury, 94-96. 

Bedford, Duke of, and Henry VI, 
172. 

Belgium, 358 ; 415 ; 416 ; 430. 

Benedictine Rule, 25 note. 

Benefices, 156. 

Benefit of clergy, defined, 96 note. 

Benevolences, of Edward IV, 178, 
182 ; Henry YH, 194. 

Bengal, 331, 



INDEX. 



483 



The references are to sections. 



Berkshire, Alfred and the Danes in, 
31. 

Berlin, Congress of, 384 ; treaty of, a 
cause of Great War, 414. 

Bernicia, founded by Angles, 15, 16 ; 
Christianity in, 21. 

Bertha, queen of Kent, 19. 

Berwick, and border troubles, 149. 

Bible, English translation of, 157 ; 
Erasmus, 199 ; in English con- 
demned, 204 ; King James's ver- 
sion, 250 note. 

Bill of Rights, 301, 309. 

Birmingham, growth of, 186, 364, 
365, 366. 

Black Death, the, 152, 153, 154. 

Black Hole of Calcutta, 331. 

Black Prince, 149, 154, 155, 158, 
171. 

Blake, Admiral, 276, 277, 279. 

Blenheim, battle of, 315. 

Blood-feuds, 49, 77. 

Bloody Assizes, 296. 

Bliicher, 358. 

Board of trade, 293 ; and planta- 
tions, 312. 

Boards, of government, 439. 

Boccaccio, 198 note. 

Boers, war with, 388, 396, 397. 

Bohemia, 161 note, 253, 270. 

Bolingbroke. See Henry IV. 

Bolingbroke, and the Stuarts, 318, 
319. 

Bolsheviki, 425. 

Bombay, 327. 

Bonaparte, Napoleon, 347, 350, 357 ; 
colonial policy of, 352 ; attempts to 
invade England, 353 ; continental 
system of, 355; Peninsular War, 
357 ; abdication of, 358. 

Boniface, 25. 

Booklands, 48, 49. 

Book of Common Prayer, first, 212 ; 
second, 215, 217, 225, 242, 272, 
285. 

Bordeaux, in Hundred Years' War, 
154. 

Border barons, 206. 

Boroughs, origin, 47 ; life in, 51 ; 
growth under Danes, 59 ; and 
John, 111-112; in Simon's parlia- 



ment, 127, 128; in Model Parlia- 
ment, 133 ; in House of Commons, 
147, 165, 246, 304, 364, 366; re- 
forms in government of, 367 ; in 
Reform Bill of 1866, 381 ; of 1884, 
387. See Towns. 

Boston Tea Party, 339. 

Bos worth Field, battle of, 182, 189. 

Botha, 396. 

Bothwell, Earl of, and Mary Stuart, 
229. 

Bouvines, battle of, 110, 111. 

Boxer uprising in China, 393. 

Boycott, 386. 

Boyne, battle of the, 307, 308. 

Braddock's defeat, 327. 

Breda, treaty of, 287, 289. 

Brest-Litovsk, treaty of, 425. 

Bretigny, peace of, 116, 149, 150, 154, 
171. 

Bright, John, 372, 389. 

Bristol, 59, 196. 

British Empire, beginning of, 326 ; 
after treaty of Paris, 333, 336 ; after 
American War, 342 ; new policy of, 
343 ; problems of, 346 ; at begin- 
ning of nineteenth century, 359- 
360; in Victorian Era, 369-399; 
new development of, 378, 380, 383 ; 
Disraeli's policy, 385 ; Australian 
federation, 395 ; African develop- 
ment, 396-397; in general, 398, 
400 ; classification of possessions, 
412 ; size of, 413 ; weaknesses of, in 
1914, 413 ; part in the Great War, 
416; see the Great War; "man- 
dataries " gained, 433 ; 434 ; 435 ; 
government of, 436-449. 

British Museum, 54 note. 

Britons, 8 ; in Wales and Cornwall, 
8 ; influence of Rome on, 9 ; de- 
serted by Romans, 14 ; conquered 
by Saxons, 15-16 ; and Christian- 
ity, 21 ; become English, 38. 

Brittany, 36, 98. 

Bruce, Robert I, 135 ; Robert II, 141, 
142, 145 ; David, 146, 149, 150. 

Brythonic Celts. See Britons. 

Buckingham (George Villiers), Duke 
of, 253, 257, 258 ; assassinated, 
260. 



484 



INDEX. 



The references are to sections. 



Bulgaria, 384; 414; 420; 431; 432 
note. 

Burgesses. See Burroughs. 

Burgh-on-Sands, 141. 

Burghs. See Boroughs. 

Burghgemot, 47. 

Burghley (William Cecil), Lord, 224 
home and foreign policy, 230-238 
and extreme Protestants, 243 
death, 244. 

Burgoyne, Sir John, in America, 340. 

Burgundy, 177; treaty with, 179, 
182; Margaret of, 191. 

Burke, Edmund, 339 note ; eco- 
nomic reforms of, 344, 345 ; trial of 
Warren Hastings, 346 ; and French 
Revolution, 347. 

Bute, Lord, 332, 335. 

Cabinet government, beginning of, 
294 ; under William III, 309 ; under 
George I, 320, 321 ; under George 
III, 331 ; under Victoria, 370 ; 
final development, 387 ; 439 ; 440. 

Cabot, John, 196. 

Cade, Jack, rebellion of, 174-176. 

Cadiz, Drake in the harbor of, 238 ; 
Blake, 279. 

Caesar, in Britain, 8. 

Calais, a Staple City, 148, 187 ; in the 
Hundred Years' War, 149, 150, 154, 
171 ; loss of, 220. 

Calcutta, 327, 331, 376 ; 403. 

Calvin, 223, 240. 

Cambridge, Peasant Revolt at, 160 ; 
sides with royalists, 269 ; Univer- 
sity of, 121 ; Opened to Non-con- 
formists, 382. 

Campbell-Bannerman, 391. 

Campbells, 306 note. 

Camperdown, battle of, 347. 

Campo-Formio, treaty of, 347, 350. 

Canada, French and English in, 327- 
332; becomes English, 333; Do- 
minion of, 378, 398 ; Houses of 
Parliament in, 392 ; local govern- 
ment of, 445. 

Canning, 363. 

Canterbury, A\igustine in, 19, 22 ; 
monastery founded at, 25 ; Arch- 
bishop of, consecrates kings, 42 ; 



Lanfranc, 75, 78; Becket, 94-96, 

150 ; tomb oi. Black Prince at, 149 ; 

Laud, 261. 
Canterbury Tales, 150. 
Cape Colony, 396, 397. 
Capitalists, rise of class, 334. 
Carberry Hill, battle of, 229. 
Carisbrooke Castle, 273. 
Carlyle, Thomas, 374. 
Carnarvon Castle, 134. 
Carson, Sir Edward, 406, 410. 
Carthusians, in England, 206. 
Cartwright, leader of Presbyterians, 

242. 
Casement, Sir Roger, 406. 
Castile, 116. 
Castles, feudal, in England, 84, 89, 

98, 134, 139, 162, 177, 231, 273. 
Catherine of Aragon, 195, 200-205, 

212. 
Cathedrals, of Canterbury, 96; of 

Durham, 20 ; of Salisbury, 121 ; 

built in the thirteenth century, 122 ; 

of York, 146. 
Catholics, Roman. See Church, 

Roman Catholic. 
Cavalier Parliament, 285, 286. 
Cavaliers. See Royalists. 
Cavendish, Lord Frederick, murder 

of, 386. 
Cawnpore, 376. 
Caxton, 182. 
Cecil, Robert, 250, 253. 
Cecil, William. See Burghley. 
Celtic missionaries in England, 21, 

22. 
Celts, 7 ; conquest of Britain by, 8 ; 

conquered by Romans, 9 ; becom- 
ing English, 35; in Ireland, 101, 

163. See Britons. 
" Central Powers," see Germany and 

Austria. 
Ceorls, Anglo-Saxon, 18 ; in army, 67. 
Ceylon, 347, 351. 
Chamberlain, early office of, 42. 
Chamberlain, Joseph, 386, 389, 402. 
Chancellor, office of, under William 

I, 71 ; under Henry II, 94 ; under 

Henry V, 170 ; under Henry VII, 

193 ; under Charles II, 288 ; under 

George V, 439. 



INDEX. 



485 



The references are to sectiona. 



Channel Islands, 2, 350. 

Charing Cross, 138. 

Charlemagne, 25, 26, 144. 

Charles I, and the Spanish marriage, 
253 ; marries a French princess, 
253 ; accession, 256 ; struggle of, 
with parliament, 257-259 ; per- 
sonal rule of, 260-263 ; financial 
measures of, 262 ; and Scotland, 
263 ; and Long Parhament, 264- 
274; execution of Strafford, 264; 
attempted arrest of five members, 
267; begins Civil War, 268-270; 
flight of, 273, execution of, 274. 

Charles II, proclaimed king in Scot- 
land, 276 ; invited to return, 283 ; 
character of reign of, 284 ; Cavalier 
Parliament, 285-286 ; and the 
Dutch War, 287 ; intrigues with 
France, 289 ; quarrels with parlia- 
ment over succession, 290, 291 ; 
colonial policy of, 292 ; commerce 
under, 293 ; legislation of, 294. 

Charles V, of France, 154 ; VI, 172 ; 
VII, 172. 

Charles V, Emperor, 201, 205, 211, 
217-220. 

Charles II, of Spain, 314. 

Charles Edward Stuart, the Young 
Pretender, 325. 

Charter of Henry I, 79 ; presented to 
John by Barons, 111 ; see also 
Magna Carta; Confirmation of the 
charters. 

Chartists, 371, 372. 

Chateau-Thierry, 429 ; 430. 

Chatham, Earl of, see Pitt. 

Chaucer, 150, 156 note, 182. 

Cherbourg, 149. 

Chester, battle of, 16; growth of, 
59. 

China, route to, 120 note ; trade with, 
376, 377 ; Boxer uprising in, 393 ; 
British lease in, 448. 

Chippenham, Danes at, 33. 

Christianity, 11 ; introduced into 
England, 19-25 ; in Normandy, 64 ; 
see also Church. 

Church, Celtic, 21-23. 

Church courts, 75, 76, 87; in Con- 
stitutions of Clarendon, 95 ; and 



the Lollards, 167 ; and the divorce 
of Henry VIII, 202 ; at Ehzabeth's 
accession, 223. 

Church, Roman, in Kent, 19 ; in 
Northumbria and Wessex, 20 ; con- 
flict of, with Ionian church, 22-23 ; 
organization of, 24 ; early influence 
of, 25 ; under Alfred the Great, 36 ; 
under Dunstan, 40 ; feudal power 
of, 63 ; and William I, 65, 75-77 ; 
and Henry I, 81 ; and Stephen, 87 ; 
and Henry II, 94-96 ; quarrel of, 
with John, 109 ; in Magna Carta, 
112; under Henry III, 119-122; 
under Edward I, 131 ; represented 
in parliament, 133 ; quarrel with 
Edward I, 138 ; decline in medi- 
aeval power of, 144, 158 ; under 
Edward III, 151 ; Wiclif and the 
Lollards, 157, 161 ; under Richard 
II, 162 ; under Henry IV, 165, 167 ; 
under Henry VII, 190 ; and the 
Renaissance, 198 ; and Henry 
VIII, 199, 203; English church 
removed from jurisdiction of, 204. 

Church, Roman Catholic, and Eliza- 
beth, 222-225 ; plots of, 232, 251 ; 
in Ireland, 276, 307, 349; under 
Charles II, 289, 290; under James 
II, 297-299; members of, barred 
from English crown, 301 ; Tolera- 
tion Act, 303 ; in Ireland, 307, 349 ; 
political emancipation of members 
of, 351, 363 ; members of, admitted 
to Oxford and Cambridge, 382. 

Church of England, 204-207, 211; 
under Edward VI, 212, 215 ; under 
Mary, 217-218; under Elizabeth, 
225, 233, 242 ; and extreme protes- 
tants, 243, 246, 250 ; Laud's poHcy, 
261 ; in Long Parliament, f^65-268 ; 
in the Convention, 283 ; estab- 
lished by the Cavalier Parliament, 
285 ; Test Act, 290, 297 ; Declara- 
tion of Indulgence, 298 ; effects on, 
of Revolution of 1688, 299, 302- 
304 ; under Anne, 313 ; dises- 
tablished in Wales, 405. 

Churchill, see Marlborough. 

Cistercians, come to England, 105. 

Civil list, 309, 344. 



486 



INDEX. 



The references are to sections. 



Civil War, causes of, 268 ; parties, 
269 ; begins, 270 ; ends, 273. 

Civil War, American, 379. 

Civil Wars. See Stephen; Barons' 
War; Roses, Wars of. 

Clarence, Duke of, 163. 

Clarendon, Assize of. See Assize 
of Clarendon. 

Clarendon, Constitutions of. See 
Constitutions of Clarendon. 

Clarendon (Edward Hyde), Earl of, 
285, 286, 287 ; fall of, 288. 

Clarendon Code, the, 285, 290. 

Claudius, in Britain, 8. 

Claverhouse. See Dundee. 

Clerks, 94, 95. 

Clemenceau, 428; 432. 

Climate, effect of, on English history, 
5 ; on character of Anglo-Saxons, 
12. 

Clive, in India, 331. 

Cluny, reforms of, 40. 

Cnut, king of England, 54 ; attitude 
of, toward England, 55 ; great earl- 
doms of, 56 ; government and law 
of, 57 ; and foreign relations, 58 ; 
succession to, 59. 

Coalitions of European powers, First, 
347; Second, 350; Third, 354; 
Fourth, 357. 

Coalition Cabinet during Great War, 
408. 

Cobden, Richard, 372. 

Coinage, debased by Henry VIII, 
210; by Edward VI, 215; im- 
proved, 231, 311. 

Colchester, seized, 273. 

Colenso, 396. 

Colet, John, 199. 

Colman, Celtic monk, 23. 

Colonial Policy. See Colonies. 

Colonies, importance of English, 1, 4 ; 
beginning under Henry VIII, 196 ; 
under Elizabeth, 245 ; Virginia, 
252 ; in Ireland, 276 ; in West In- 
dies, 279 ; War over Dutch, in 
Africa and America, 287 ; under 
Charles II, 292, 293; conflict of 
English and French, 304 ; encour- 
aged by parliament, 312 ; after 
treaty of Utrecht, 314; in Wal- 



pole's ■ ministry, 321 ; King 
George's War, 324 ; growth of, 
326 ; rivalry with France, 327 ; 
Seven Years' War, 328-333 ; policy 
of England toward, 336-339 ; War 
of American, for independence, 
339-342 ; new policy toward^ 343 ; 
French, 352 ; slavery in, abolished, 
368 ; problem of, 378 ; of Germany 
and France, 393 ; in Australia, 395 ; 
in South Africa, 396-397 ; policy in 
general toward, 398, 400 ; in the 
Great War, 417 ; 419 ; 427 ; over- 
seas government, 445 ; of the 
Crown, 447. 

Columba, St., 21, 22. 

Columbus, 196. 

Commerce. See Trade and Com- 
merce. 

Common law, 99, 100, 193. 

Commons, House of, first step toward, 
128 ; second step, 133 ; third, 147 ; 
under Richard II, 155; powers of, 
increased, 171 ; and taxation, 193 ; 
journals of, 212; citizen class in, 
246 ; Apology of, 249 ; Petition of 
Right, 258, 259; impeachment" of 
Strafford by, 264 ; Charles I enters, 
267; and Civil War, 269-275; 
position after Charles II, 294 ; 
under William III, 309 ; under 
George I, 320 ; and power of public 
opinion, 335; debates of, public, 
344; and reform, 364-366; and 
party government, 370 ; and Sec- 
ond Reform Bill, 381 ; Irish mem- 
bers of, 386 ; reformed, 400, 404 ; 
407 ; 442. See also Parliament. 

Commonwealth, period of the, 275- 
278. 

Compurgation, 49, 50, 99. 

Concord, battle of, 340. 

Confirmation of the charters, 139, 
146. 

Congress of Berlin, 384 ; 414. 

Conscription bill, 420 ; 429. 

Conservatives, old Whig party, 367 ; 
position of, under Victoria, 370, 
372; new, 380; and Second Re- 
form Bill, 382 ; in power, 382-385, 
390 ; in 1900, 392 ; later, 404. 



INDEX. 



487 



The references are to sections. 



Constantinople, 375. 

Constitution of England, taking 
shape, 131, 170, 248, 258 ; in Long 
Parliament, 264 ; CromweU's 
changes in, 278, 280 ; restored to 
monarchy, 282, 284 ; advance 
under Charles II, 294; in Bill of 
Rights, 301 ; advance under Wil- 
liam III, 309 ; under Walpole's 
ministry, 321 ; George III, 331 ; 
reforms in, 359-363 ; government 
by parties, 370 ; established, 400 ; 
at present, 402 ; 436-449. 

Constitutions of Clarendon, 95. 

Continent, influence of, on Britain, 
3, 9, 220, 285. 

Convention, the; of 1659, 283, 285; 
of 1689, 300, 301, 309. 

Conway Castle, 163. 

Copenhagen, battle of, 350. 

Copyhold, 184, 366. 

Cork, submits to William III, 307. 

Corn laws, 179, 362 ; made less rigid, 
363 ; repealed, 372. 

Cornwall, 6 ; Britons in, 8, 16 ; Gav- 
eston, earl of, 143 ; elections in, 
364. 

Cornwallis, 341. 

Coroner, 99, 112, 127. 

Corporation Act, 285. 

Council, Privy, 155, 170, 178 ; power 
of, increases, 192, 193 ; and Somer- 
set, 214; and Charles I, 262. See 
also Star Chamber. Now honorary 
office, 438. 

Council of the King, 71, 73, 77 ; un- 
der Henry I, 82 ; under John, 112 ; 
development of, 123, 193. 

Council of the North, 206, 264. 

Council of Trent, 223. 

Council of Wales, 209, 264. 

Counties, administration of, re- 
formed, 390 ; 444. See Shires. 

Court of Chancery, 132, 193. 

Court of Common Pleas, 132, 193. 

Court of Exchequer, 82, 90, 127, 132, 
193, 262 ; 439. 

Court of High Commission, 262, 264. 

Court of Requests, 193. 

Courts, Anglo-Saxon, 39, 41 ; of the 
shire, 44 ; of the hundred, 45, 46 ; 



of the burgh, 47 ; work of, 50 ; un- 
der Edward the Confessor, 63 ; un- 
der William I, 72-73, 77; church 
courts, 75 ; royal courts, 82, 90 ; 
local courts under Henry II, 91 ; 
Constitutions of Clarendon, 95, 99 ; 
in Magna Carta, 112 ; under Henry 

111, 127; under Edward I, 131, 
132; appeals of, to Pope, 162; 
under Henry VII, 193 ; reformed, 
400. See also Hundred court; Shire 
court; Curia Regis; Star Chamber. 

Covenanters of Scotland, 263, 306. 
Craft gilds. See Gilds, craft. 
Cranmer, Thomas, 204, 212, 215, 217, 

219 note. 
Crecy, battle of, 149, 150, 153, 171, 

200. 
Crimean War, 375. 
Cromwell, Oliver, 265, 266, 270 ; and 

the army, 271-272 ; in Wales, 273 ; 

in Ireland and Scotland, 276, 317 ; 

and commerce, 277 ; Proctector, 

278-280 ; place in history, 281 ; 

treatment of, by Convention, 283. 
Cromwell, Richard, 282. 
Cromwell, Thomas, 193 ; policj^ of, 

203-207 ; fall of, 208. 
Crosses erected in England ; St. 

Martin's, at lona, 21 ; Charing, in 

London, 138 ; Mucheney, 139. 
Crown Colonies, 447. 
Crusade, first, 80, 104 ; second, 104 ; 

third, 103, 104; last, 129, 144. 
Cuba, 332, 333. 
Culloden, battle of, 325. 
Cumberland, 206. 
Curia Regis (king's court), 82, 90, 

112, 132. 

Customs duties, 310, 321. See also 

Tonnage and poundage. 
Cuthbert, St., 21, 28. 
Cyprus, 384. 

Dalhousie, 376. 

Danegeld, origin of, 43 ; paid by 
^thelred, 54; levied by William 
I, 73 ; under Henry II, 90, 100. 

Danelaw, 34, 57. 

Danes, 7 ; in Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 
14 ; and the rise of Wessex, 26-35 ; 



488 



INDEX. 



The references are to sections. 



first invasions, 27-29 ; settlement, 
30 ; fighting in Wessex, 31 ; and 
Alfred, 33; treaty with, 34; re- 
sults of invasions, 35 ; under 
Eadgar, 39, 46, 47; continued 
attacks of, 53 ; conquest, 54-59 ; 
under Harold, 61. 

Dante, 198 note. 

Dardanelles Expedition, 419. 

Darnley, 229. 

Dauphin of France, 171 note. 

David of Scotland, 84. 

Davison, Sir Francis, 237. 

Declaration of Independence. See 
Independence, Declaration of. 

Declaration of Indulgence. See In- 
dulgence, Declaration of. 

Declaration of Right, 301. 

Defoe, Daniel, 309. 

Deira, founded by Angles, 15, 16; 
Christianity in, 21. 

Delhi, 376, 383, 401, 403. 

Democracy, in towns, 367. 

Denmark, 11, 28; Cnut and, 55-59 ; 
commercial treaty with, 179, 277 ; 
and arbitration, 393. 

Despensers, 143. 

Devon, Britons in, 16, 35. 

De Wet, 396. 

Dickens, Charles, 374. 

Diet of Worms, 201. 

Dilke, Sir Charles, 386. 

Disraeli, Benjamin. See Beacons- 
field, Earl of. 

Dissenters. See Non-conformists. 

Districts, reform of 1894, 444. 

Divine Right of Kings, doctrine of, 
247, 302, 323. 

Domesday Book, 73, 74, 131. 

Dominicans, come to England, 120. 

Dover, secret treaty of, 289. 

Drake, Francis, 235, 237, 238, 279. 

Dryhurgh Abbey, 206. 

Dryden, John, 309. 

Dublin, 276, 307. 

Dudley, Guildford, and Lady Jane 
Grey, 216, 218. 

Dunbar, battle of, 276. 

Dundee, Claverhouse of, 306. 

Dunkirk, 286, 288, 289. 

Dunstan, 39 ; reforms of, 40, 75. 



Dupleix, in India, 327, 331. 
Duquesne, 327, 331. 
Durbar in Delhi, 401 ; 403. 
Durham, bishop of, 96, 98 ; cathedral 

of, 20 ; represented in parliament, 

364 note. 

Eadgar, king of Wessex, 38-41, 45, 47, 

53 ; law of, chosen by Cnut, 57. 
Eadmund, king of Wessex, 38. 
Eadred, king of Wessex, 38. 
Eadward the Elder, king of Wessex, 

38. 

Eadward the Martyr, king of Eng- 
land, 53. 

Eadwine, of Mercia, 61, 66. 

Eadwine, Idng of Northumbria, 20, 
21, 26. 

Ealdormen, 39, 41, 43, 44, 53. 

Earldoms, of Cnut, 56, 60 ; changes 
under Harold, 61, 62; growth in 
power of, 62, 65 ; and William I, 
68, 70, 72. See Barons. . 

East Anglia, 16, 18; Christianity in, 
20 ; under Mercia, 26 ; Danes in, 
30, 34 ; becomes English, 38 ; gov- 
ernment of, 39 ; yields to Danes, 

54 ; under Cnut, 56 ; and Eadwine, 
61, 62. 

East India Company, 252, 312, 331, 
346, 376, 377. 

Eastern Empire, the, 104. 

Edgar, chosen king, 68. 

Edgehill, battle of, 270. 

Edict of Nantes, revoked, 297. 

Edinburgh, 23 ; treaty of, 227, 228. 

Edington, battle of, 33. 

Edmund Ironside, 54, 68. 

Education, monasteries and, 25 ; 
Alfred and, 32, 36 ; effect of Danish 
invasion on, 35 ; Dunstan, 40 ; and 
the friars, 121 ; and Colet, 199 ; 
Pitt's reforms, 345 ; and the re- 
forms of the nineteenth century, 
382, 400, 440. 

Edward the Confessor, chosen king, 
59 ; rule of, 60, 63 ; succession, 65 ; 
compared to Wilham I, 71 ; law of, 
preserved, 72, 79, 83. 

Edward I, 112; marriage of, 116; 
aids father, 125 ; defeats Simon at 



INDEX. 



489 



The references are to sections. 



Evesham, 129 ; king, 130-141 ; 
character of, 130 ; reforms of, 131- 
132, 139 ; parliament of, 133 ; and 
Wales, 134; and Scotland, 135, 
137, 141 ; quarrel of, with France, 
136, 140 ; quarrel of, with Pope, 
138; death of, 142; Conway 
castle built by, 163. 

Edward II, birth of, in Wales, 134 ; 
and the Scots, 142 ; misgovernment 
of, 143 ; deposition of, 143. 

Edward III, accession of, 143 ; trouble 
with Scotland, 145 ; with France, 
146 ; and parliament, 147, 155- 
157 ; interest of, in trade and com- 
merce, 148 ; and Hundred Years' 
War, 146, 149, 154 ; position of, in 
1360, 150; Poor Laws of, 153; 
death of, 158 ; successors to, in 
Wars of the Roses, 176. 

Edward IV, proclaimed king, 176 ; 
struggle to maintain crown, 177 ; 
as king, 178 ; interested in indus- 
try and commerce, 179 ; character 
and death of, 180. 

Edward V, 180; death of, 181. 

Edward VI, betrothed to Mary of 
Scotland, 209 ; reign of, under Pro- 
tectorship of Somerset, 212-214 ; 
of Warwick, 215; death of, 216. 

Edward VII, 401 ; foreign relations in 
reign of, 402. 

Egbert, king of Wessex, 26, 27. 

Egypt, France and England in, 350, 
351 ; India and, 383 ; troubles in, 
388 ; Great Britain in, 394 ; 423 ; 
after the War, 433 ; 434 ; Protec- 
torate, 448. 

Elba, Napoleon. at, 358. 

Eleanor, wife of Henry II, 85, 98, 109. 

Eleanor, wife of Edward I, 138. 

Elections, to parliament, freedom 
of, under Henry V, 170 ; under 
Henry VI, 174 ; under Henry VIII, 
193 ; under Edward VI, 212 ; and 
the Apology of the House of Com- 
mons, 249 ; and the Bill of Rights, 
301 ; in the Septennial Act, 320 ; 
bribery at, 335 ; reform in, 364- 
366, 387, 400, 405, 407, 408, 409. 

Eliot, Sir John, 259. 



Elizabeth, birth of, 204; succession 
of, arranged, 212 ; treatment of, 
by Mary, 218 ; proclaimed queen, 
221 ; character of, 222 ; difficult 
position of, abroad, 222, 223 ; po- 
sition at home, 224 ; religious set- 
tlement, 225 ; foreign relations, 
229, 234 ; and Scotland, 227-229, 
237 ; question of marriage of, 230 ; 
prosperity of England under, 231 ; 
plots against, 232, 236 ; and par- 
liament, 233 ; and Spanish Armada, 
238, 239 ; and Puritans, 240-243 ; 
last years of reign of, 244 ; the age 
of, 245. 

Emma, marries Malcolm II of Scot- 
land, 59. 

Emma of Normandy, mother of Ed- 
ward the Confessor, 59. 

Enclosures, beginning of, 185 ; at- 
tempts to check, 196 ; and Rett's 
uprising, 213 ; attitude of Warwick 
toward, 215; in days of Elizabeth, 
231, 245. 

Enniskillen, siege of, 307. 

Entails, statute of, 131. 

Entente cordiale, 402. 

Eorls, Anglo-Saxon, 18. 

Erasmus, Desiderius, 199. 

Essex, 39, 160 ; rebellions in, 273. 

Essex, Earl of, and Queen Elizabeth, 
244 ; appointed leader of troops, 
268. 

Eton, 382 note. 

Eugene, Prince, 315. 

Eustice, son of Stephen, 86. 

Evesham, battle of, 129. 

Exchequer, Court of. See Court of 
Exchequer. 

Excise, 310. 

Excise BiU, 321, 322, 335. 

Exclusion Bill, 291. 

Factory legislation, need of, 360-361 ; 
beginning of, 368 ; later, 392, 400. 

Fairfax, Sir Thomas, 270, 271, 273. 

Falkirk, battle of, 141. 

Falstaff, 168. 

Family institutions, of Anglo-Saxons, 
12, 17-18, 45, 48, 49, 50 ; influence 
of Norman Conquest on, 77. 



490 



INDEX. 



The references are to sections. 



Fawkes, Guy, 257. 

Fealty, oath of, 63, 69. 

Ferdinand, of Spain, 195, 200. 

Feudalism, under Anglo-Saxons, 63 ; 
in Normandy, 64, 65, 67 ; land sys- 
tem of, introduced by William I, 
69, 70-77; at its height, 77-87; 
under William II, 78 ; under 
Stephen, 87 ; struggle of monarchy 
with, 88-1 14 ; and Angevins, 88 ; 
effect of scutage on, 92, 93 ; struggle 
of feudal lords against Henry II, 
97-98, 102 ; weakened by Henry II, 
99, 100 ; relations of France and 
England, 108 ; John's struggle with, 
111; in Magna Carta, 112; and 
Edward I, 131, 133 ; and Scotland, 
135, 137 ; beginning of end of, 144 ; 
end of, 165-187 ; under Henry IV, 
165; ^ead, as political influence, 
183 ; is of, revived by James I, 
249 ; Charles I, 262, 264 ; abol- 
ished, .^-83. 

Fief, defined, 90. 

Finisterre, battle of Cape, 353. 

Fisher, John, bishop of Rochester, 
205. 

Five Mile Act, 285. 

Flanders, beginning of commerce 
with, 59, 65 ; and Edward I, 136, 
140; trade with, 148, 174, 191, 
231 ; war of, with Spain, 234, 238 ; 
William III in, 308, 315 ; in the 
Great War, 416, 417, 427, 430. 

Flodden Field, 200. 

Florida, 333, 342. 

Foch, General Ferdinand, in com- 
mand of Allied Armies, 429 ; 430. 

Folkland, 48, 49. 

Folk-laws, 48. 

Folkmot, 17, 41. 

Foreign Office, the, 439. See the 
Cabinet. 

Forests, royal, 73, 118, 262, 264. 

Fotheringay Castle, 237. 

Fox, Charles James, 344, 345, 347. 

France, Celts in, 8 ; commerce of 
England with, 59 ; Normandy, 64- 
65 ; Louis VI, 80 ; and the Ange- 
vins, 85, 88, 90 ; and Henry II, 96, 
98, 102 ; and Richard I, 103, 106 ; 



and John, 108, 110, 113; and 
Henry III, 116; and Edward I, 
130, 133, 136, 140, 141; develop- 
ment of French monarchy, 144; 
and Edward III, 146 ; trade with, 
148; Hundred Years' War, 149, 
150, 168, 170, 171, 172; influence 
of, on Richard II, 162 ; and Henry 
VII, 195; and Henry VIII, 197, 
200, 201, 209, 211 ; and Mary 
Queen of Scots, 214; regains 
Calais, 220; and EUzabeth, 223, 
226-228, 231, 234; alliance of 
England with, 253, 255, 257 ; and 
England under Cromwell, 279 ; in- 
fluence of, on English life after the 
Restoration, 285 ; power of Louis 
XIV, 287 ; intrigues of Charles II 
with, 290 ; James II flees to, 300 ; 
war of, with England, 303 ; and 
William III, 305, 307 ; battle of La 
Hogue, 308 ; refugees of, in Eng- 
land, 312; Marlborough in, 313- 
316 ; and War of the Austrian Suc- 
cession, 324 ; Charles Edward in, 
325 ; colonial rivalry of, with Eng- 
land, 327 ; Seven Years' War, 328- 
332 ; treaty of Paris, 333 ; joins 
American colonies, 341-342 ; treaty 
of, with England, 345 ; Revolution 
in, 347, 348 ; and Ireland, 349 ; war 
with, 350, 351 ; and colonies, 352 ; 
war renewed, 353 ; Crimean War, 
375 ; and Egypt, 388 ; colonies of, 
393, 394; the Entente with Eng- 
land, 402 ; the War, 414-416; 418- 
422; 423; 427-433. 

Franchise, 131 ; in 1688, 302 ; reform 
of, in 1832, 365-366 ; in 1867, 381 ; 
in 1884, 387 ; in 1912, 405 ; in 1918, 
407 ; extension of, demanded by 
Chartists, 361 ; for women, 405, 
407. 

Francis I, of France, 201, 209, 211; 
II, 214, 226. 

Franciscans, come to England, 120. 

Franks, 64. 

Frederick Barbarossa, 96, 104, 105. 

Frederick the Great, 324, 328, 329, 
332. 

Freedom of speech, 254, 301. 



INDEX. 



491 



The references are to sections. 



Free Trade, 370, 372, 374, 378. 
French and Indian War, 328-332. 
French, Sir John, 416; 420. 
French Revolution of 1789, 347, 348 ; 

of 1830, 364, 365 ; of 1848, 374. 
Friars, coining of, 120-121 ; influence 

of, 156, 157, 160; and Lollards, 

167 ; Carthusians and Henry VIII, 

205. 
Frobisher, Martin, 238, 245. 

Gaelic Celts, 8 ; in Ireland and Scot- 
land, 8 ; invasions of, 14 ; con- 
verted by St. Patrick, 21 ; and 
Henry II, 101. 

Gag laws, 362. 

Gardiner, Bishop, 217, 219. 

Garter, Order of the, 150, 224, 230. 

Gascony, 116, 123, 140, 146, 149, 196. 

Gaunt, John of, 154, 155, 158, 160, 
163, 171, 189. 

Gaveston, Pierre, 143. 

Geoffrey of Anjou, 85. 

Geoffrey, son of Henry II, 108. 

Geography of England, 1-6. 

George I, succession of, 318-319 ; in- 
fluence of, 320 ; death of, 322. 

George II, accession, 322 ; death, 331. 

George III, accession of, 331 ; policy 
of, 331 ; dismisses Pitt, 332 ; recalls 
Pitt, 334; personal rule of, 338- 
342; opposes Tories and "old 
whigs," 344 ; and French Revolu- 
tion, 348 ; opposes Roman Catholic 
emancipation, 349, 351 ; gives up 
title " King of France," 321 ; after 
1815, 362; death of, 363. 

George IV, rules as regent, 362 ; as 
king, 363-365. 

George V, 403. 

George of Denmark, 313. 

George, D. Lloyd, 404; 408; 409; 
410; 423; 424; 428; 432. 

Germany, Anglo-Saxons in, 11 ; com- 
merce with, 59 ; Richard's cap- 
tivity in, 103, 105 ; battle of Bou- 
vines, 110; and Edward I, 136; 
and Henry VII, 195 ; and Henrv 
VIII, 197, 200, 201; Luther in, 
223; and Elizabeth, 226; and 
James I, 253-255; and War of 



Spanish Succession, 314; wars of, 
374 ; and arbitration, 393 ; atti- 
tude toward England, 402 ; in the 
Great War, 413-433. 

Ghent, peace of, 356. 

Gibraltar, 315, 316, 350. 

Gilds, merchant, 148; craft, 186, 187, 
231. 

Gladstone, ministries of, 370 note; 
leaves Conservatives, 372 ; leader 
of new Liberals, 380 ; attitude of, 
toward Civil War in America, 379 ; 
first reform ministry of, 381, 382 ; 
foreign policy of, 383 ; second min- 
istry of, 386 ; and Reform Bill of 
1884, 387 ; and Indian affairs, 388 ; 
and Home Rale, 389, 391. 

Glastonbury Abbey, 40. 

Glencoe, massacre of, 306 note. 

Gloucester, Henry III, crowned at, 
113. 

Godwine, Earl, 60. 

Gordon, General, in Khart^ ^a, 388. 

Gothic architecture, 122 note. 

Government, development of, in 
England, 1 ; Roman, in England, 
9 ; Alfred's, 36, 38 ; Eadgar's, 39, 
41 ; position of king, 42 ; of witan, 
43 ; local government, 44-46 ; 
Cnut's, 56-57 ; of feudal system, 
63 ; of William I, 70-77 ; of Henry 
I, 82 ; of Henry II, 89-93, 90-100 ; 
and Magna Carta, 112, 114; of 
Henry III, 123, 124 ; of Edward I, 
144 ; taking shape, 170 ; influence 
of Henry VII on, 192 ; beginning of 
parliamentary, 248 ; of Cromwell, 
280 ; changes in, 294, 301, 302, 321 ; 
by parties, 370, 387, 400, 436-449. 

Grand Remonstrance, the, 265, 266. 

Grasmere, 6. 

Great Britain, defined, 2, 317. 

Great Council, 71, 73, 77 ; under 
Henry I, 82; under John, 112; 
becomes Parliament, 123. 

Greece, 423; enters the War, 428; 
431. 

Grenville, Lord, 335-337. 

Grey, Earl, 365. 

Grosseteste, Robert, bishop of 
Lincoln, 120, 123. 



492 



INDEX. 



The references are to sections. 



Guiana, 255, 393. 

Guise, House of, 209, 220, 223, 226. 

Gunpowder Plot, 251. 

Guthrum, peace of, 34. 

Habeas Corpus Act, 294 ; suspended, 
348. 

Hadrian, in Britain, 8 ; wall of, 8. 

Hague Tribunal, the, 393. 

Haig, Sir Douglas, 420 ; 427. 

Hales Case, 297. 

Hampden, John, 262, 267, 268 ; dies, 
270. 

Hampton Court, 250 note, 273. 

Hanover, separation of, from English 
Crown, 369. 

Hanoverians, title to English throne, 
301, 309; succession of, 318, 320; 
support of, 321, 323. 

Hanseatic League, 179 note, 187. 

Harold, son of Cnut, 59. 

Harold, son of Godwine, as Earl, 60 ; 
as king, 61 ; and William of Nor- 
mandy, 65 ; defeat of, at Stamford 
Bridge, 66 ; at Hastings, 67. 

Harold Hardrada, 66. 

Harthacanute, 59. 

Hastings, battle of, 67. 

Hastings, Warren, 346. 

Hawkins, Sir John, 235, 238. 

Health laws, 367, 374. 

Hengist, 14. 

Henrietta Maria, 253, 257, 267. 

Henry, son of James I, 250, 253. 

Henry, son of Henry II, 98, 102, 108. 

Henry I, 78 ; crowned, 79 ; charter of, 
79 ; conquers Normandy, 80 ; and 
chtnch, 81 ; administration of, 82 ; 
death of, 83. 

Henry II, fiefs of, 85, 130 ; accession 
of, 86 ; character of, 88 ; adminis- 
tration under, 89-93; 99-100; 
quarrel of, with Becket, 94-96 ; 
feudal reaction against, 97-98 ; and 
Ireland, 101 ; death of, 102, 103 ; 
system of, 106, 131. 

Henry III, accession of, 113; char- 
acter of, 115; marriage connec- 
tions of, 116; government of, 117- 
119 ; and the barons, 123-129. 

Henry IV, as Bolingbroke, 163 ; 



character of, 165 ; conspiracies 
against, 166 ; the church under, 
167 ; death of, 168. 

Henry V, character of, 168 ; and Lol- 
lards, 169 ; parliament under, 170 ; 
continues Hundred Years' War, 
171 ; death of, 172. 

Henry VI, ends Hundred Years' 
War, 172; misrule of, 173-174; 
Wars of Roses, 175-176 ; restored 
to throne, 177; death of, 177, 181. 

Henry VII, parliamentary king, 182 ; 
character and claims of, 189-190 ; 
conspiracies against, 191 ; govern- 
ment of, 192-193 ; methods of rais- 
ing money, 194 ; foreign relations 
of, 195 ; agriculture, commerce, 
and colonization under, 196 ; death 
of, 197 ; Elizabeth compared with, 
222. 

Henry VIII, marries Catherine of 
Aragon, 195 ; accession of, 197 ; 
and Oxford Reformers, 199 ; for- 
eign relations of, 200, 201 ; divorce 
question, 202, 203 ; separation from 
Rome, 204 ; persecutions of, 205, 
206 ; suppression of monasteries, 
207 ; fall of Cromwell, 208 ; rela- 
tions with Scotland, Wales, and 
Ireland, 209 ; revenues of, 210 ; in- 
fluence of, 211 ; succession of, 212. 

Henry VI, of Germany, 105. 

Hereford, bishop of, 118; knight of, 
155. 

Hide, of land, 18, 45, 48 ; in Domes- 
day Book, 74. 

Highlanders. See Scotland. 

Hindenburg line, 427, 430. 

Hohenlinden, 350. 

Holbein, court painter of Henry VIII, 

197, 199, 209. 
Holland. See Netherlands. 
Holy League, the, 200. 
Holy Roman Empire, 144. 
Homage, 63. 
Home Office, the, 439. 
Home Rule Question, 373, 389, 390 ; 

second bill for, 391 ; recent trouble 

over, 404, 405. 
Hongkong, 377. 



INDEX. 



493 



The references are to sections. 



Hooper, Bishop, 219 note. 

Horsa, 14. 

Hotspur, 166. 

House of Lords. See Lords. 

Hubert de Burgh, justiciar under 
Henry III, 117, 118. 

Hudson Bay Territory, 316. 

Huguenots, in England, 231, 297. 

Humber, the, 35. 

Humble Petition a,nd Advice, the 
280. 

Hundred, 39; origin, 41, 42, 45; 
courts of, 46, 50; in Domesday 
Book, 74 ; in Assize of Clarendon, 
99; Hundred Rolls, 131. 

Hundred courts, 42, 45, 46, 50 ; con- 
trolled by lords, 63 ; preserved un- 
der William I, 72, 73. 

Hundred Rolls, 131. 

Hundred Years' War, 146, 149 ; re- 
newed, 171 ; ended, 172. 

Hus, John, 161 note. 

Huscarls, 66, 67. 

Huskisson, William, 363. 

Hyde, Edward. See Clarendon, Earl 
of. 

Impeachment, by Sir Francis Bacon, 
255 ; of Buckingham, 2'57, 258 ; of 
Strafford, 264 ; of Clarendon, 288 ; 
of Boling broke, 319 ; of Hastings, 
346. 

Independence, Declaration of, of 
American Colonies, 340, 343. 

Independents, views of, 242 ; perse- 
cution of, 243 ; flight to America, 
243 ; attitude of Anglicans toward, 
246 ; in Long Parliament, 265 ; sep- 
aration from Presbyterians, 270; 
dominance of, in army, 272 ; in 
Rump Parliament, 273; in Bare- 
bone's Parliament, 278 ; in parlia- 
ment of 1654, 280 ; and Declaration 
of Indulgence, 298. 

India, trade with, 252, 277 ; colonies 
in, 304, 327; Seven Years' War, 
331 ; and treaty of Paris, 333 ; Fox 
and, 344 ; Pitt and, 346 ; threatened 
by Napoleon, 350, 352 ; in Crimean 
War, 375 ; mutiny in, 376 ; Empire 
of, 383 ; recent administration of, [ 



398; durbar, 401,403; in the War, 
433,434; India office, 439 ; present 
administration, 446. 
Indulgence, Declaration of, 298. 
Industry, development of, in England, 
1, 3, 6; under Romans, 9; under 
Alfred, 36 ; under Cnut, 59 ; effect 
of Crusades on, 104 ; growth of, in 
fourteenth century, 148 ; effect 
of Black Death on, 153 ; under 
Richard II, 158, 162, 164; Cade's 
Rebellion, 174 ; under Edward IV, 
178, 179; revolution in fifteenth 
century, 184, 186; under Henry 
VII, 196 ; under Henry VIII, 210 ; 
and Edward VI, 213 ; under Eliza- 
beth, 231, 245; under Charles I, 
262; growth of, in seventeenth 
century, 312 ; under Walpole's min- 
istry, 321 ; in eighteenth century 
333 ; revolution in, 351, 360, 361 
364, 370, 372 ; exhibition of, 374 
and American. Civil War, 379 
reforms in, 380, 381-383, 387, 392 
condition of, in Victorian Era, 400. 
Inkerman, 375. 

Innocent III, 109, 113, 119, 144. 
Inquest, introduction of, by Nor- 
mans, 74; first application of, to 
matters of justice, 99, 100. 
Instrument of Government, 278-280. 
Intolerable Acts, 339. 
Investiture struggle, of Henry I, 81. 
lona, missionaries in, 21, 22; Danes 
in, 21 ; graves of Scottish kings at, 
142. 
Ireland, 2 ; climate, 5 ; surface, 6 ; 
mineral ore, 6 note ; Celts in, 8 ; 
St. Patrick in, 21 ; Danes in, 29 ; 
and Alfred, 36 ; Henry II attempts 
conquest of, 101, 107; Richard II 
in, 163 ; at time of Henry VII, 191 
note ; under Henry VIII, 205, 208, 
211 ; under Elizabeth, 223 ; Span- 
ish and Jesuits in, 234 ; during last 
years of Elizabeth, 244 ; policy of 
" Thorough " in, 261 ; under 
Charles I, 262 note ; in revolt, 276 ; 
under Cromwell, 279 ; uprisings in, 
under William III, 306, 307 ; gov- 
ernment of, under Anne, 317; 



494 



INDEX. 



The references are to sections. 



Ktt'spolicy toward, 345; union of, 
with England, 349, 351 ; Peel's 
policy toward, 363 ; representation 
of, in parliament, 366, 387 ; Home 
Rule in, 373, 382, 385, 389, 391 ; 
reforms in land system, 390 ; other 
reforms for, 392, 405, 406, 410. 

Irish National Land League, 386. 

Irish Nationalist party, 404, 406, 408. 

Isabel of Angouleme, 108. 

Isabella of Spain, 195. 

Italy, 198-200, 315, 350, 374, 393 ; in 
the [Great War, 415, 422, 423, 429, 
431. 

Itinerant justices, under Henry II, 
91, 99, 100 ; in Magna Carta, 112 ; 
under Henry III, 127 ; under Ed- 
ward I, 131. 

Jacobites, definition of, 308 ; up- 
rising of (1715), 319; decline of, 
323; uprising (1745), 325. 

James I (VI of Scotland), birth of, 
229 ; succession of, 247 ; and par- 
liament, 249, 254; attitude to 
Non-conformists, 250 ; and Roman 
Catholics, 250, 251 ; attitude 
toward commerce and colonization, 
252 ; foreign relations of, 253 ; 
results of reign, 255 ; union of Eng- 
land and Scotland under, 317. 

James II, as Duke of York, 287, 292 ; 
Test Act, 290 ; Exclusion Bill, 291 ; 
accession of, 295 ; character of, 
295 ; uprisings against, 296 ; Ro- 
man Catholic policy of, 297, 298 ; 
and Revolution of 1688, 299 ; flees 
from England, 300 ; rising of High- 
landers for, 306 ; loses battle of the 
Boyne, 307 ; Jacobite party sup- 
ports, 308. 

James IV of Scotland, 195, 200, 209. 

James V of Scotland, 209, 225. 

James Stuart, the Old Pretender, 318, 
319, 323. 

Jameson raid, the, 317. 

Jamestown, 252. 

Japan, 377 ; understanding with Eng- 
land, 402. 

Jarrow, monastery of, 20 note, 25. 

Jeffreys, Chief Justice, 296. 



Jellicoe, Admiral, 422. 

Jenkins's Ear, War of, 322, 335. 

Jesuits, in England, 223, 234, 236. 

Jews, 100 note ; under Henry III, 
118; denied political rights, 363. 

Joan of Arc, 172. 

Joffre, commander of French and 
English forces, 416. 

John, King, revolts against father, 
102 ; against Richard, 105 ; be- 
comes king, 106 ; character of, 107 ; 
loss of French lands by, 108 ; and 
the church, 109, 119 ; attempts to 
recover French lands, 110; and 
barons. 111 ; signs Magna Carta, 
112; attempt to revoke Magna 
Carta, 113; results of reign, 114. 

John, of France, 149. 

John of Gaunt. See Gaunt, John of. 

Junius, letters of, 335. 

Jury, beginnings of, 74, 79, 100, ll2 ; 
developed, 294. 

Justiciar, of William I, 71 ; of 
Henry I, 82 ; of Henry II, 90, 95, 
98; of Richard I, 195; of John, 
111; Hubert de Burgh, 116; of 
Henry III, 124. 

Jutes, 10, 11, 12; summoned to 
Britain, 14 ; become English, 35. 

Jutland, battle of, 422. 

Kabul, 388. 

Kandahar, 388. 

Kenilworth, 231. 

Kent, seized by Jutes, 14, 18 ; Augus- 
tine in, 19 ; Paulinus in, 20 ; under 
Mercia, 26 ; Danes in, 29, 30, 34 ; 
becomes English, 35 ; Normans 
land in, 66 ; Matilda in, 84 ; Peas- 
ant Revolt in, 160; Cade's Rebel- 
lion, 174 ; Mary's executions in, 
219 ; rebellions in, 273. 

Kett's uprising, 213. 

Khartum, 388, 394, 396. 

Killiekrankie, battle of, 306. 

Kimberly, 385. 

King, Anglo-Saxon, 12 ; in Britain, 
17 ; supremacy of, 26 ; of England, 
41 ; growth of power of, 42 ; lands 
of, 48 ; decline of, 53 ; Norman, 70, 
77, 87 ; power of, increases, 90-95 ; 



INDEX. 



495 



The references are to sectiona. 



and the barons, 1 1 1-1 14 ; at time 
of Henry III, 115 ; growing power 
of, 144, 178, 188, 192, 193 ; doctrine 
of Divine Right of, 247 ; attempts 
to define the rights of, 249, 255, 
264 ; office abolished by Rump 
Parliament, 275 ; restoration of, 
283 ; position of, 284 ; ceases to be 
absolute, 294, 299, 302 ; limited by 
parliament, 309 ; decline of power, 
320, 370 ; place in the Empire, 437 ; 
439. 

King George's War, 324. 

King's Bench, Court of, 132, 193. 

King's peace, 42. 

Kitchener, Lord, in Egypt, 394, 396, 
417 and note. 

Knight, feudal, 69, 70, 72, 92, 93 ; in 
militia, 100, 105, 109. 

Knights of the shire, origin of, 93 ; 
in parliament, 126, 127, 128 ; under 
Edward I, 131 ; in Model Parlia- 
ment, 133 ; join burgesses, 147, 165. 

Knox, John, 227. 

Kruger, Paul, 396. 

Labor party, 404, 405, 408. 

Lafayette, 431. 

La Hogue, victory of, 308. 

Lancastrians, 163 note, 165-182 ; and 
parliament, 170 ; and Tudors, 189. 

Land System, 37, 41 ; local, 44, 45 ; 
vills, 46 ; tribal, 49 ; tenure of great 
lords, 53 ; beginnings of feudalism, 
63 ; introduced by William I, 69 ; 
features of feudal tenure, 70, 92 ; 
in Domesday Book, 74, 77 ; effect 
of scutage on, 93 ; under Edward I, 
131 ; manorial system, 151, 152, 
160, 184-185, 196, 213; question 
of, after Restoration, 283 ; in 
Ireland, 386, 390. 

Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
75, 78, 94. 

Langland, William, 156. 

Langton, Stephen, 109, 111, 113. 

Latimer, 219 note. 

Latin, use of, 52, 217. 

Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
260-264. 

Laws, English, 1 ; beginnings under 



Alfred, 36, 38; Anglo-Saxon, 43; 
local, 44 ; under Cnut, 57 ; under 
William I, 72, 73 ; Norman kings, 
78, 79 ; confirmed by Stephen, 83 ; 
under Angevins, 89 ; under Henry 
II, 99, 100 ; in Magna Carta, 112 ; 
under Edward I, 130, 131 ; in 
Wales, 134; and the king, 139; 
process of making, 170 ; progress 
in, 294, 299, 301, 302. See also 
Statutes. 

Leeds, 186, 364, 365. 

Leicester (Robert Dudley), Earl of, 
230. 

Leipzig, battle of, 357. 

Lenin, 425. 

Lewes, battle of, 125, 129. 

Lexington, battle of, 340. 

Liberal party, beginning of, 367 ; 
under Victoria, 370, 371 ; and re- 
peal of Corn Laws, 372, 380 ; new 
party, 380, 381 ; in power, 382, 
385-389, 391, 404, 408. 

Liberal Unionists, 389, 391, 392, 404, 
408. 

Limerick, peace of, 307, 308. 

Lincoln, Roman arches at, 11 ; battle 
of, 84; defeat of Louis at, 113; 
Grosseteste, bishop of, 120 ; revolts 
in, 206. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 379. 

Lindisfarne, monastery of, 21 ; de- 
stroyed by Danes, 29. 

Lionel, Duke of Clarence, 163. 

Literature, under vUfred, 36 ; under 
Dunstan, 40 ; Anglo-Saxon, 52 ; of 
thirteenth century, 121 ; Chaucer, 
150; of fifteenth century, 182; 
Elizabethan, 245 ; of nineteenth 
century, 374. 

Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, 125. 
134. 

Loanland, 48. 

Local administration, under Edgar, 
39 ; shires, 44 ; hundreds, 45 ; 
vills, 46 ; burghs, 47 ; beginnings 
of feudalism, 63 ; under William I, 
72, 77 ; under Henry II, 91, 100 ; in 
Magna Carta, 112 ; and knights of 
the shire, 127 ; under Edward I, 
130, 131 ; reforms in, 367 ; women 



496 



INDEX. 



The. references are to sections. 



vote in, 387 ; recent reforms, 390, 
400, 443, 444. 

Lollards, rise of, 158, 161 ; and 
Henry IV, 165 ; persecution of, 167, 
169. 

London, 150 ; captured by Danes, 
33 ; by Alfred, 34 ; yields to Danes, 
54 ; under Cnut, 59 ; William I in, 
68, 71 ; and Henry I, 79 ; and Ste- 
phen, 83 ; and John, 112, 113 ; and 
Henry III, 118, 120, 125; parlia- 
ment in, 126, 127, 129; Peasant 
Revolt, 160 ; Cade's RebeUion, 174 ; 
executions at, 205 ; parliament at, 
272 ; plague and fire in, 287 ; fears 
Charles Edward, 325 ; represented 
in parliament, -346, 365 ; govern- 
ment of, 390. 

London Bridge, 205. 

London Company, 252. 

Londonderry, siege of, 307. 

Long Parliament, 264-278. 

Lords, House of, 147, 193 ; and the 
Commons, 246 ; in the Civil War, 
269 ; abolished by Rump Parlia- 
ment, 275 ; under Wilham III, 309 ; 
under George I, 320 ; and reform, 
365, 390 ; recent action concerning, 
404; 441. 

Lords Ordainers, 143. 

Loudoun, Lord, 329. 

Louis VI, of France, 80 ; VII, 85, 96, 
98, 102; VIII, 113; IX, 116, 124, 
129 ; XI, 177 ; XII, 200, 201 ; 
XIII, 257; XIV, 287, 289, 297- 
300, 305-308, 313-315, 318; XV, 
331 ; XVI, 347. 

Louis Napoleon, 375. 

Louisberg, 327, 329, 331. 

Lucknow, siege of, 376. 

Luneville, treaty of, 350, 

Lusitania, 422. 

Luther, Martin, 161 note, 199, 201, 
223. 

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 374. 
Mad Parliament, 124. 
Magdalen College, Oxford, 198. 
Magersfontein, 396. 
Magna Carta, events leading to, 
111; provisions of, 112 ; attempts 



to revoke, 113-114; under Henry 
III, 117 ; under Edward I, 129. 

Maine, an EngHsh fief, 85, 106, 108, 
172. 

Majuba Hill, battle of, 388. 

Malcolm II of Scotland, 58, 79. 

Malplaquet, battle of, 315. 

Manchester, growth of, 186 ; repre- 
sentation of, 362-366. 

" Mandataries," 433. 

Manorial system, 69, note, 77 ; royal, 
73; under Henry III, 118; under 
Edward III, 151-153; under 
Richard II, 159 ; breaking up of, 
184, 213. 

Marengo, 350. 

Margaret, daughter of Henry VII, 
195. 

Margaret of Anjou, 173, 177. 

Margaret of Scotland, 135. 

Maria Theresa, of Austria, 324. 

Marlborough (Lord Churchill), Duke 
of, 300, 308, 313-316. 

Marlowe, Christopher, 245. 

Marne, first battle of, 416; in 1918, 
429. 

Marston Moor, battle of, 270. 

Mar's uprising, 319. 

" Martin Marprelate " controversy, 
243. 

Mary, daughter of Henry VIII, 201, 
202, 297 ; succession of, provided 
for, 212 ; perseciitions of, 215 ; ac- 
cession, 217 ; and the Spanish mar- 
riage, 218 ; persecutions of, 219 ; 
loss of Calais by, 220 ; death of, 
221 ; compared to Elizabeth, 222. 

Mary, daughter of James, duke of 
York, 291, 299, 301, 313. 

Maryland, 276, 287. 

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, be- 
trothed to Edward VI, 209 ; French 
marriage of, 214 ; claims of, to 
English throne, 224, 226; return 
of, to Scotland, 227-228; fall of, 
229 ; in England, 231 ; centre of 
Roman Catholic plots, 232 ; execu- 
tion of, 237. 

Matilda, 79 ; quarrel with Stephen, 
83-85; "Lady of England," 84; 
aided by son, 85, 89. 



INDEX. 



497 



The references are to sections. 



Maximilian, Emperor, 195, 201. 

Melbourne, 369, 370, 395. 

Merchants, growing importance of, 
111, 112, 131, 139 ; Statute of, 131 ; 
gilds of, 148; in Cade's Rebellion, 
174; welfare of, promoted by Ed- 
ward IV, 179 ; and Walpole, 321. 

Merchant Adventurers, 187, 196, 
220, 252. 

Merchant Gilds. See Gild, Mer- 
chant. 

Merchant Staplers, 187, 220. 

Mercia, founded, 16, 18 ; Penda in, 
20 ; Celtic missionaries in, 21 ; su- 
premacy of, 26 ; Danes in, 30, 34, 
46 ; becomes English, 35 ; monas- 
teries in, 36 ; government of, 39 ; 
under Cnut, 56 ; Eadwine, 61, 62. 

Merton College, Oxford, 121. 

Methodism, rise of, 334. 

Mexico, 393. 

Middle Ages, end of, 144, 164. 

" Middle Europe," 420, 421, 424, 431. 

Migrations, 10. 

MiUtia Bill, 268. 

Millenary petition, 250. 

Milton, John, 276. 

Mineral resources, 6, 6 note, 361, 
368, 392, 400. 

Ministerial government, growth of, 
170; bribery of, 211, 255; re- 
sponsibility of, 211, 255, 288, 294; 
under William III, 309 ; power 
increases under Hanoverians, 320, 
321 ; under Victoria, 370. 

Minorca, 316. 

Mise of Amiens. See Amiens, Mise 
of. 

Missionaries, Roman, in Kent, 19 ; 
in Northumbria and Wessex, 20 ; 
Celtic, in Mercia and Northumbria, 
21 ; conflict between, 22-23 ; Eng- 
lish, sent to continent, 25. 

Mississippi, 327. 

Model Army, 271-273. 

Model Parliament, 133. 

Monastery, of Jarrow, 20 note, 25; 
of lona, 21 ; of Lindisfarne, 21 ; of 
Whitby, 23 ; influence of, 25 ; of 
Canterbury, 25 ; of York, 25 ; 
sacked by Danes, 35 ; under Al- 



fred, 36: under Dunstan, 40; and 
land, 48 ; Lanfranc, 75 ; flourish, 
87 ; and ransom of Richard I, 105 ; 
growth of, checked, 131, 156 ; and 
Henry VIII, 205-207, 213 ; encour- 
aged by James II, 297. 

Monck, General, 276, 282. 

Money, Anglo-Saxon, 39, 47 ; scarcity 
of, 51 ; Cnut's, 59 ; increase in use 
of, 152, 158. 

Monmouth, Duke of, 291, 296-297. 

Monopolies, 196 ; under Elizabeth, 
244, 249; trade, 252, 255; under 
Charles I, 262 ; under William III, 
312 ; East India Company, 376. 

Montcalm, 327, 331. 

Montenegro, 384. 

Montfort, Simon de, 123 ; and 
Henry III in Barons' War, 124- 
125 ; government of, 126 ; parlia- 
ment of, 127, 133 ; defeat of, and 
death, 129. 

Montrose, Earl of, 271. 

More, Sir Thomas, 199, 205, 213. 

Mortimer, Roger, 143, 145. 

Mortimer's Cross, battle of, 176. 

Mortmain, Statute of, 131. 

Morton's Fork, 194. 

Moscow, 357. 

Mucheney Cross, 139 ; rectory, 304. 

Municipal reforms, 367, 443. 

Mutiny Act, 309. 

Nanking, treaty of, 377. 

Napoleon I. See Bonaparte. 

Naseby, battle of , 271. 

National debt, 311, 320; 321, 335; 
scheme for redeeming, 345 ; in- 
crease in, 351 ; cuts down interest, 
363. 

National unity, beginnings of, under 
Alfred, 34, 35, 38 ; under Eadgar, 
41; decline of, 62; influence , of 
Norman Conquest on, 77 ; and 
Magna Carta, 114; injured under 
Henry III, 115; under 'Edward I, 
130, 133 ; new age of the Tudors, 
189 ; Henry VIII, 211 ; Elizabeth, 

. 239, 246. 

Navigation Acts bf 1651, 277; of 
1660, 1663, and 1672, 293 ; of 1696, 



498 



INDEX. 



The references are to sections. 



312, 317; and the colonies, 321, 
335 ; modified, 363 ; repealed, 
374. 

Navy, English, under Alfred, 36 ; 
growth of, 179, 196, 220, 231, 245, 
304, 333, 347, 350, 359 ; under Wal- 
pole, 321 ; reformed, 400 ; great 
feature in the War, 418 ; 426 ; 435. 

Nelson, Admiral, 350, 353, 354. 

Netherlands, 191, 200, 226, 231, 234 ; 
war with, 277, 279, 286, 287-290, 
292, 300, 308, 312 ; and War of the 
Spanish Succession, 314-316 ; First 
Coalition, 347 ; and arbitration, 
393. 

Neuve Chapelle, battle of, 420. 

New England, 287. 

New Forest, 78. 

Newfoundland, 245, 316, 350, 378, 
393; 445. 

Newmarket meeting, 272. 

Newspapers, beginning of, 276, 368. 

New York, 287, 292, 327. 

New Zealand, 343, 378, 398 ; 445. 

Nicholas of Russia, 375. 

Nightingale, Florence, 375 note. 

Nile, battle of, 350. 

Nivelle, General, 427. 

Non-conformists, under Elizabeth, 
242, 243, 246 ; under James I, 249 ; 
under Charles I, 265-266 ; Charles 
II, 285; Test Act, 290; Declara- 
tion of Indulgence, 298 ; Act of 
Toleration, 303, 309; rehgious 
freedom, 382. See also Presby- 
terians; Independents; Baptists; 
Quakers; Church, Roman Catholic. 

Norfolk, Duke of, 232, 364 note. 

Norman architecture, 122 note. 

Norman conquest, 53, 64-77. 

Normandy, ^thelred flees to, 54 ; 
commerce with, 59 ; origin of, 64 ; 
William, Duke of, 65 ; Robert, 78 ; 
Henry I's troubles with, 80 ; and 
Angevins, 85 ; Richard I in, 106 ; 
and John, 108, 114; Henry V in, 
171. 

Normans, 7, 58 ; come in with Edward 
the Confessor, 60 ; under Harold, 
61 ; origin, 64 ; conquer England, 
65-77 ; and the Enghsh, 136. 



North, Lord, 338, 339, 341, 342, 344, 
345, 349. 

Northcliffe, Lord, 408 ; 424. 

Northampton, Assize of. See As- 
size of Northampton. 

Northampton, battle of, 176. 

Northumherland, Percys in, 166; 
represented in parliament, 364 
note. 

Northumbria, Celts and Angles, 16, 
18 ; Christianity in, 20, 21 ; power 
of, 26 ; Danes in, 29, 30 ; becomes 
English, 38 ; government of, 39 ; 
under Cnut, 56 ; Scots in, 58 ; Tos- 
tig, 61, 62; Wallace in, 141. 

Norway, and England, under Cnut, 
55, 58, 59. 

Nova Scotia, 316, 333, 342. 

O'Connell, Daniel, 373. 

Offa, king of Mercia, 26, 36. 

Oldcastle, Sir John, 169. 

Omdurman, battle of, 394. 

Opium War, 377. 

Ordeals, 50. 

Orlando, 428 ; 432. 

Orleans, siege of, 172. 

Oscar, of Sweden, 393. 

Oswiu, king of Northumbria, 21, 23, 
26. 

Otto I, 144. 

Ottoman Empire, 375, 384. See 
also Turkey. 

Oudenarde, battle of, 315. 

Oxford, meeting at, 57 ; Mad Parlia- 
ment at, 123, 124; and Charles I, 
269 ; surrenders, 271 ; in parlia- 
ment, 364 note ; beginning of Uni- 
versity of, 87, 121 ; friars in, 120; 
Wiclif at, 157, 161 note ; Magdalen 
College at, 198 ; Wesleys at, 334 ; 
no religious test, 382. 

Oxford movement, 374. 

Oxford reformers, 199. 

Palmerston, Lord, 370, 375, 380. 
Palestine, in the Great War, 428, 431. 
Paris, 110 ; French Revolution in, 347. 
Paris, treaty of, in 1763, 332, 335; 

in 1783, 342; in 1856, 375-379. 
Parishes, see Local Government. 



INDEX. 



499 



The references are to sections. 



Parish priests, 169. 

Parliament, early use of name, 123, 
124; Simon's, 126, 127, 128; of 
Edward I, 130, 131, 133, 136-138; 
of Edward II, 143 ; of Edward III, 
146, 147, 153 ; Good, 155 ; growth 
of power under Richard II, 158, 
162, 163; and Lancastrians, 165, 
170; and Yorkists, 176, 177, 178; 
and Henry VII, 189, 192-194; 
supports Henry VIII, 204, 205; 
and Somerset, 212 ; upholds Mary, 
218 ; and Elizabeth, 233 ; and the 
Stuarts, 246-303 ; powers of, 248 ; 
quarrel with James I, 249, 254, 
255 ; and Charles I, 257 ; Petition 
of Right, 258, 259; Long, 263- 
278 ; war declared, 270 ; and the 

. army, 272 ; Rump, 272-278 ; Bare- 
bone's, 278 ; Cromwell's, 278-280 ; 
power of, after Restoration, 284 ; 
Cavalier, 285, 286 ; Test Act, 290 ; 
Whigs and Tories, 291 ; after 
Charles II, 294; under James II, 
296; Bill of Rights, 301, 302; 
power of, established, 304 ; expan- 
sion of England under rule of, 305- 
359; and William III, 305, 309; 
and taxation, 310; Bank of Eng- 
land and national debt, 311 ; and 
industry, 312 ; George III, 331 ; 
and colonies, 337-342 ; corruption 
in, 344 ; reforms, 345 ; Irish mem- 
bers, 349 ; not representative, 362 ; 
need of reform, 364 ; fight for re- 
form, 365 ; party government in, 
370 ; reform of 1866, 382 ; of 1884, 
387; 404, 405, 407, 408, 441, 442. 
See also Commons ; Lords. 

Parliament Act, 404. 

Parliamentarians, 269, 270. 

Parnell, Charles Stewart, 386. 

Party government, ,320, 321, 331, 
370. 

" Pastoral Care " of Pope Gregory, 
35, 36. 

Patrick, St., 27. 

Paulinus in Northumbria, 20. 

Peasants' Revolt of 1381, 158-160, 
184. 

Peel, Sir Robert, 363, 370, 372. 



Penda, king of Mercia, 20, 21. 

Peninsular War, 357. 

Penn, Admiral, 279. 

Penn, William, 292. 

Pensions, old age, 405. 

Percys, rebellion of, 166, 176. 

Pershing, General, 427 ; 429. 

Petain, General, 421. 

Peterloo, massacre of, 362. 

Peter's Pence, 76. 

Petition of Right, 257-259. 

Petrarch, 198 note. 

Philip Augustus, of France, struggle 
of, with kings of England, 102-113. 

Philip of Anjou, 314, 316. 

Philip of Burgundy, 172. 

Philip IV, the Fair, of France, 136, 
140, 141, 144. 

Philip VI, of France, 146, 149. 

Philip II, of Spain, marries Mary 
Tudor, 218 ; influence of, 220, 221 ; 
attitude of, in Elizabeth's reign, 
223, 230, 232, 234 ; determined to 
invade England, 237 ; and Armada, 
238-239. 

Philippine Islands, 332. 

Phoenicians, in England, 6 note. 

Picardy, 172. 

Piers Plowman, 156. 

Pilgrimage of Grace, 206, 207. 

Pilgrimages, of Middle Ages, 96, 104, 
150. 

Pitt, William, the elder, character of, 
330 ; policj' and influence of, 331 ; 
fall of , 332, 335 ; recall of , 334 ; and 
colonies, 339 note ; the younger, 
344 ; character and policy of, 345 ; 
and India, 346 ; and French Revo- 
lution, 347, 348 ; and Ireland, 349 ; 
and France, 350, 352-353. 

Plassey, battle of, 331. 

Plymouth Company, 252. 

Pocket boroughs, 364, 365. 

Poitiers, battle of , 149, 150, 153, 171, 
200. 

Pole, Cardinal, legate to England, 
218, 221. 

Political organization, of Anglo- 
Saxons, 12 ; changed in Britain, 17 ; 
of Alfred, 35-38 ; of Eadgar, 39, 41 ; 
42-46. 



500 



INDEX. 



The references are to sections. 



Poll tax, 160. 

Poor laws, early, 153 ; of Elizabeth, 
231, 245; of Charles I, 262; of 
Pitt, 345 ; of nineteenth century, 
361, 367 ; revision of, 374. 

Portugal, 196, 277, 357. 

Postal reform, 368. 

Post Office, the, 439. 

Poyning's Law, 191 note. 

Praemunire, First Statute of, 156, 
162: Second, 162, 202, 219. 

Presbyterians, 223 ; in Scotland, 
227-228, 242-243, 246, 261, 265; 
Solemn League and Covenant, 
270 ; and Church of England, 272 ; 
Pride's Purge, 273, 292 ; in Conven- 
tion, 283 ; Declaration of Indul- 
gence, 298 ; in Scotland, 317. See 
also Non-conformisis. 

Press, liberty of, not established, 
294, 299; established, 309; vio- 
lated, 335 ; encouraged, 344. 

Preston, battle of, 273. 

Prestonpans, battle of, 325. 

Pretender, the Old. See James 
Stuart: the Young. See Charles 
Edward Stuart. 

Pride's Purge, 273, 282. 

Prime minister, rise of, 370. See 
Cabinet Government. 

Prince of Wales, title of, 134. 

Printing, invention of, 182, 198. 

Privileges of Parliament, 170, 249, 
254, 255; violated by Charles I, 
267 ; defined in Bill of Rights, 301. 

Privy Council. See Council, Privy. 

Protector. See Cromwell, Oliver. 

Protectorate, 278-280 ; of the Empire, 
448. 

Protest of parliament, 254, 258. 

Provisions of Oxford, 124, 126, 129. 

Provisors, First Statute of, 156, 162; 
Second, 162. 

Prussia, 316, 324, 328, 329, 331, 347, 
355-358, 374. 

Puritans, rise of, 240 ; and Elizabeth, 
241 ; struggle of, with Anglicans, 
246 ; in parliament, 248 ; and 
James I, 250 ; and Laud, 261 ; and 
Charles I, 263, 265-266 ; and social 
life, 279 ; in Cavalier Parliament, 



285. See Presbyterians; Inde- 
pendents; Non-conformisis. 
Pym, John, 263-268. 

Quakers, 298. 
Quebec, battle of, 331. 
Queen Anne's War, 315. 
Quia Emptores, Statute of, 131. 

Radical party, old, 362 ; demands of, 
364; unite with Whigs, 367 ; and 
Chartists, 371 ; new party, 380 ; 
first members of ministry, 386. 

Railroad, first, 365. 

Ralegh, Sir Walter, 244-245, 255. 

Ramillies, battle of, 315. 

Redmond, John Edward, 406. 

Reform BiU, of 1832, 365-366, 371 ; 
of 1866, 381, 387; of 1884, 387, 
388, 390. 

Reform, movement of, begins, 344, 
345 ; checked by the French Revo- 
lution, 348, 359 ; real beginning of, 
363 ; need of, 364 ; fight for, 365 ; 
Bill of 1832, 366; other reforms, 
367, 368 ; second movement for, 
380, 381 ; in ministry of Gladstone, 
382; third bill, 387; in Ireland, 
local government, 390 ; in general, 
400 ; 405 ; 407. 

Reformation, the, 161 ; in England, 
188-244. 

Renaissance, the, 198 ; Englishi 
245. 

Rent, growth of fixed, 184. 

Representation in parliament, in 
1688, 302 ; in eighteenth century, 
334, 345 ; in nineteenth century, 
364-366, 381, 387-390 ; in colonies, 
378 ; reformed, 387 ; in local gov- 
ernment, 390 ; fully established, 
400. 

Revolution of i688, 299-302, 305, 
310. 

Rheims, 172 ; attack on, 429. 

Richard I, Coeur de Lion, revolts 
against father, 102 ; character of 
reign, 103 ; on Second Crusade, 
104 ; ransom of, 105 ; and Philip 
Augustus, 106 ; compared with 
Edward I, 130. 



INDEX. 



501 



The references are to sections. 



Richard II, accession of, 158 ; and 
peasant revolts, 160 ; misrule of, 
162 ; deposition of, 163 ; results of 
reign, 164. 

Richard III, as regent, 180 ; usurpa- 
tion of, 181 ; career of, as king, 
182 ; defeat of, at Bosworth Field, 
182. 

Richard, brother of Henry III, 116. 

Richmond. See Henry VII. 

Ridley, Bishop, 219 note. 

Ridolfi Plot, 232. 

Rizzio, 229. 

Robert of Normandy, 78-80. 

Roberts, Lord, 396. 

Roches, Peter des, 118. 

Rochester, 205. 

Rockingham, ministry of, 337, 342. 

Rogers, John, 219 note. 

Rollo, the Dane, 64. 

Roman Catholics. See Church, 
Roman Catholic. 

Roman Empire, 8-10. 

Romans, in Britain, 8, 9, 13, 25 ; 
withdraw, 14. 

Rosebery, Lord, 370, 390. 

Roses, Wars of the, first period, 164, 
170 ; second period, 176 ; third 
period, 177 ; end of, 182 ; results 
of, 183. 

Rossbach, battle of, 329. 

Roundheads. See Parliamenta.rians. 

Round Table, Knights of, 16 note. 

Roxburgh, 149. 

Royal Titles Bill, 383. 

Royalists, 269, 270 ; effects of execu- 
tion of Charles I upon, 276. 

Rugby, 382. 

Rumania, 384, 414 ; joins the En- 
tente, 423. 

Rump Parliament, 273, 274; exe- 
cutes Charles I, 274 ; establishes 
Commonwealth, 275 ; Protecto- 
rate, 278, 280 ; restored, 282. 

Runnymede, John at. 111. 

Rupert, Prince, 270. 

Russell, Sir John, 363, 365, 370, 372, 
381. 

Russell, Lord William, 291, 308. 

Russia, 245, 252, 329, 350, 354-357, 
375, 384-385, 393; in the Great 



War, 402, 414, 415, 420, 422, 
423 ; the Russian Revolution, 425. 
Ryswick, treaty of, 308, 814. 

Sacheverell, Dr., sermon of, 316. 

St. Albans, Council of. 111; battle 
of, 175. 

St. Andrew, Cross of, 317. 

St. George, Cross of, 317. 

St. Helena, Napoleon at, 358. 

St. Mihiel, 430. 

St. Paul's School, 199. 

Saladin Tithe, 100. 

Salisbury, meeting at, 1086, 70, 95; 
cathedral of, 121, 122 note. 

Salisbury, Lord, 370, 389-393. 

Samoa, 393. 

Sarum, 364 note, 365. 

Savoy, 136, 315, 316. 

Saxons, in Britain, 10, 13 ; first home 
of, 11 ; organization of, 12 ; true 
founders of England, 15 ; struggle 
of, with Britons, 16 ; become Eng- 
lish, 35. 

Scandinavia, 28, 54 note. 

Schools, 199, 279, 382. 

Scone, Stone of, 135, 137, 141. 

Scotland, geographical position of, 
2 ; Celts, 8 ; Romans in, 9 ; Chris- 
tianity in, 21, 22 ; under Cnut, 58 ; 
breaks away from Cnut's empire, 
59 ; and Harold, 61 ; subdued by 
William, 68 ; invades England, 84 ; 
under Henry II, 98 ; and Richard 
I, 104 ; and John, 109 ; and Henry 
III, 116; and Edward I, 130, 133, 
135-138, 141 ; and Edward II, 142 ; 
and Edward III, 145-146, 149-150 ; 
and Richard III, 182 ; and Henry 
VII, 195; and Henry VIII, 197, 
200, 206, 209, 211 ; and Edward 
VI, 214 ; and Elizabeth, 223 ; and 
Mary Queen of Scots, 226-227, 229, 
231-232 ; and Charles I, 262 ; and 
parliament, 270-273 ; declares for 
Charles II, 276 ; union of, with 
England, 279 ; Highlanders resist 
William III, 306 ; the union, 317 ; 
Jacobites in, 319, 325 ; in parlia- 
ment, 366 ; local government, 390. 

Scutage, 92, 93, 100, 111, 112, 127. 



502 



INDEX. 



The references are to sections. 



Secretariat, the, 439. See the Cabinet. 

Sedgemoor, battle of, 296. 

Seneschal, office of, 42. 

Separatists, 242-243. 

Septennial Act, 320. 

Sepoy regiments, 376. 

Serfs, 87, 160. 

Servia, 384. (Serbia), 414 ; 431. 

Settlement, Act of, 309, 313, 318, 323. 

Sevastopol, 375. 

Seven Years' War, 328-332, 341, 352. 

Seymours, struggle of, with Howards, 
212. 

Shaftesbury, Earl of, 368. 

Shakespeare, 168, 245. 

Sheffield, 186, 364, 365. 

Sheriff, powers of, in Anglo-Saxon 
times, 44-47 ; after the Conquest, 
72 ; reports to Exchequer, 90 ; 
position of, under Henry II, 91, 97, 
99 ; in Magna Carta, 112 ; in Stat- 
ute of Westminster, 131 ; and par- 
liament, 147. 

Ship-money, levies of, 262-264. 

Shire, origin of, 39, 41 ; administra- 
tion of, 42, 44, 47 ; in Domesday 
Book, 74 ; knights of, 93 ; in par- 
liament, 128. 

Shire court, origin, 41 ; fines of, 42 
powers of, 44 ; and sheriff, 72, 73 
separate from church courts, 75 
organization of, 99 ; knights of 
shire at, 127. 

Shrewsbury, battle of, 166 ; parlia- 
ment of, 162. 

Sicily, and Richard I, 105. 

Simnel, Lambert, conspiracy of, 
191. 

Sinn Fein, 406, 408, 409, 410. 

Six Articles Act, 204, 205, 212. 

Slavery, Anglo-Saxon, 18 ; negro, 
235, 345 ; trade abolished, 368 ; 
emancipation in West Indies, 378 ; 
in United States, 379. 

Sluys, battle of, 149. 

Smalkald League, 208 note. 

Smith, Adam, 343. 

Socialist party, 381. 

Society, Anglo-Saxon, 12, 17, 18, 41- 
62 ; influence of Christianity on, 
25 ; of Danes, 35, 59 ; of feudalism. 



63, 77, 84; of Edward III, 160- 
153; 156, 159; at close of Middle 
Ages, 164 ; and Puritans, 279 ; at 
Restoration, 285 ; changes, 304 ; 
at time of Walpole, 321 ; and 
Methodism, 334 ; in nineteenth 
century, 361, 367, 392, 400. 

Solemn Engagement of the Army, 
272. 

Solemn League and Covenant, 270. 

Sol way Moss, battle of, 209. 

Somerset, Duke of. Protector, 212- 
214. 

South Africa, 385, 388, 396, 397, 398, 
401. See also Boers; in the Great 
War, 433 ; administration of, 445. 

South America, 316, 322. 

Southampton, Duke of, treasurer of 
Charles II, 289. 

South Sea Bubble, 321. 

South Sea Company, 316. 

Spain and England, 116, 144; trade 
with, 187; and Henry VII, 195, 
196 ; and Henry VIII, 200, 201 ; 
and Elizabeth, 223, 226, 231-233, 
237-238, 244; and James I, 250, 
253-255 ; war with, 256-257 ; and 
Cromwell, 279; War of Spanish 
Succession, 314-316; war con- 
tinued, 322; Pitt, 332; treaty of 
Paris, 333 ; and American war, 
341 ; Peace of Amiens, 351-352 ; 
Peninsular War, 357. 

Spanish Succession, War of, 314- 
316. 

Spenser, Edmund, 245. 

Spinning-jenny, invention of, 360. 

Spurs, battle of, 200. 

Stamford Bridge, battle of, 66. 

Stamp tax, 310 ; Act, 337. 

Standard, battle of, 84. 

Staple city, 148, 187 ; 220. 

Star Chamber, 193, 263, 264, 294. 

Statute law, 100 note, 131 note, 170, 
193 ; supremacy of, established, 
299, 302. 

Statutes, of Westminster, 131 ; of 
Merchants, 131 ; of Entails, 131 ; 
of Quia Emptores, 131 ; of Win- 
chester, 131 ; of Mortmain, 131 ; 
of Laboreis, 153 ; Qf Provisors, 156, 



INDEX. 



503 



The references are to sections. 



162 ; of Praemunire, 156, 162 ; of 
Liveries and Maintenance, 162 ; of 
Supremacy, 204 ; of Six Articles, 
204; repealed, 213 ; of Supremacy 
(1559), 225 ; of Uniformity (1559), 
225; for Relief of the Poor, 231, 
245 ; of Apprentices, 231 ; petition 
of Right, 258 ; Corporation Act, 
285; of Uniformity (1662), 285; 
Five Mile Act, 285; Test, 290; 
Habeas Corpus, 294 ; of Toleration, 
303 ; Mutiny, 309 ; Bill of Rights, 
309 ; Triennial Bill, 309 ; of Settle- 
ment, 309 ; of Union with Scotland, 
317; Stamp, 337; Townshend, 
338 ; of Union with Ireland, 349 ; 
Gag Laws, 362; Corn Law, 362; 
of Roman Catholic Emancipation, 
363 ; parliamentary reform, 364, 
381, 387 ; Municipal Corporations, 
367 ; Public Health, 367 ; Educa- 
tion, 368, 382; Canadian, 378; 
Australian, 378 ; Irish Church 
Disestablishment, 382 ; Irish Land, 
382; Army Reform, 382; indus- 
trial reforms, 382, 392 ; concerning 
local government, 390. 

Steam, inventions employing, 120 
note, 360, 365. 

Stephen, King, claims of election, 
83 ; war of, with Matilda, 84, 85 ; 
treaty of Wailingford, 86 ; results 
of reign, 87, 89, 91, 97. 

Stirling, battle of, 141 ; siege of, 142 ; 
castle of, 139, 142; James VI 
crowned at, 229. 

Stormberg, battle of, 396. 
' Strafford (Thomas Wentworth), 
I Earl of, 257, 260-264. 

Strikes, 382. 

Stuarts, 246-317 ; restored, 282 ; 
conspiracies of, 319-326. 

Subinfeudation, 92, 131. 

Submarine warfare, 422 ; 424 ; un- 
restricted, 426. 

Sudan, 388, 394. 

Suez Canal, 383. 

Suffolk, Earl of, 173. 

Suffrage. See Franchise. 

Supremacy, Act of, 204, 226. 

Sweden, 393. 



Sweyn Fork-beard, 54. 
Synod of Whitby, 22. 

Tabard Inn, 150. 

Tasmania, 378, 395. 

Taxation, Anglo-Saxon, 42 ; Dane- 
geld, 43 ; under William I, 72-74, 
77 ; William II, 78 ; Henry II, 90 ; 
scutage, 92, 93, 98 ; Saladin Tithe, 
100 ; for Crusades, 106 ; in Magna' 
Carta, 112; under Henry III, 118; 
and knights of shire, 127 ; by Model 
Parliament, 133, 139, 146, 148; 
under Edward III, 155, 158, 162; 
poll tax, 160 ; controlled by parlia- 
ment, 170 ; and Cade's Rebellion, 
174 ; benevolences, 178, 182 ; and 
Tudors, 192-194; under Henry 
VIII, 210; James I, 249; and 
Spanish war, 257 ; Petition of 
Right, 258-259 ; under Charles I, 
262 ; after Charles II, 294, 301 ; 
under William III, 310 ; Walpole, 
321 ; and the colonies, 337-339 ; 
regulated, 345, 363, 372; local, 
390 ; change in, 402. 

Temple Court, 160. 

Tennyson (Alfred), Lord, 374. 

Test Act, 290, 297, 298, 303. 

Tewkesbury, 177, 181, 183. 

Thackeray, William Makepeace, 374. 

Thames, 26, 35, 38, 71, 111, 287, 

Thane, 36, 41, 43 ; and land, 48 ; in 
Harold's army, 67. 

Thanet, Isle of. Jutes land on, 14; 
Augustine in, 19 ; Danes in, 29. 

Theodore of Tarsus, 24, 25. 

Thirty-nine Articles, 225, 233, 259. 

Thirty Years' War, 254. 

Thistle, Order of, 150. 

" Thorough," policy of, 261. 

Tinchebrai, battle of, 80. 

Tintern Abbey, 206. 

Toleration, Act of, 303, 309. 

Tonnage and Poundage, 194, 257, 
259, 262, 264. 

Tories, 291 ; in power, 296-297, 299 ; 
and William III, 308, 309 ; Anne, 
313; and succession to throne, 318- 
320 ; and Walpole, 322 ; new, 331, 
339, 344, 351; and reform, 362, 



504 



INDEX. 



The references are to sections. 



363, 365 ; take name of Conserva- 
tives, 367. 

Tostig, 61, 65, 66. 

Toulon, Siege of, 347. 

Tower of London, 177, 181, 214, 259. 

Towns, in Roman Britain, 9 ; built 
by Alfred, 36 ; under Normans, 87 ; 
and Crusades, 104 ; growth of gilds 
in, 148 ; rapid growth of, 158, 164 ; 
Black Death in, 153 ; and Cade's 
Rebellion, 174 ; and Wars of the 
Roses, 176 ; and industrial revolu- 
tion, 186 ; and foreign trade, 187 ; 
under Elizabeth, 231 ; poor repre- 
sentation of, 302 ; rapid growth of, 
321 ; reform of representation, 360, 
361, 367. 

Townshend Acts, 338. 

Towton, battle of, 176, 183. 

Tractarian movement, 374. 

Trade and Commerce, 1 ; geo- 
graphical advantages for English, 
3, 4 ; in Roman times, 9 ; under 
Alfred, 36; Anglo-Saxon, 42, 47, 
51 ; gro'wi;h of, under Danes, 59 ; 
under Normans, 87 ; and Crusades, 
104, 131 ; advance in, 148, 158, 
162, 164 ; under Edward IV, 178, 
179; growth of, 184, 187; en- 
couraged by Henry VII, 192, 196 ; 
by Henry VIII, 210, 213, 220 ; by 
Elizabeth, 231, 245; trading com- 
panies, 252, 277 ; encouraged by 
Cromwell, 279 ; jealousy of Dutch, 
287 ; under Charles II, 292, 293 ; 
strides in, 304, 312, 321 ; rivalry 
with Spain, 322 ; and prosperity, 
323, 331 ; and colonies, 335 ; 
treaty of, with France, 345 ; 
threatened by France, 350, 355 ; 
rising importance of, 364, 374, 375, 
376 ; of Germany and France, 393 ; 
of Victorian Era, 400. 

Trade unions, 363, 380, 381, 382. 

Trading companies, 252, 293. 

Trafalgar, battle of, 354. 

Transportation, new methods of, 400. 

Transvaal, the, 385, 396-397. 

Treasury, 439 ; first lord of, see 
Prime Minister; second lord of, 
see Exchequer. 



Trenches, use of, 416. 

Trent affair, 379. 

Tribal organization of Anglo-Saxons, 

17, 26, 27, 41, 49; influence of 

Alfred on, 37 ; abolished, 77. 
Tribute to Danes. See Danegeld. 
Triennial Act, 264 ; Second, 309, 320. 
Triple Alliance (1882), 402; 415. 
Trotsky, 425. 

Troyes, treaty of, 171, 172. 
Tudors, 179, 182-244, 246. 
Tun. See Vill. 
Turkey, trade with, 252, 384, 394; 

a cause of the Great War, 414 ; 

419 ; 428 ; 431 ; 432 note ; 433. 
Tweed, 68, 200. 
Tyburn, 283. 
Tyler, Wat, 160. 
Tyne, 8. 

Ulm, siege of, 354. 

Ulster, 405, 406, 410. 

Uniformity, Acts of, 215, 225, 241, 
243, 285. 

Union, Act of, 317, 349, 351. 

Union Jack, 317, 349. 

United Kingdom, definition of, 2. 

United States, 352; War of 1812, 
356 ; Civil War, 374 ; and Japan, 
377 ; and arbitration, 393 ; enters 
the Great War, 424; 426; 427; 
429. 

Universities, and friars, 121 ; follow 
Charles I, 269 ; strengthened by 
Cromwell, 279. See also Oxford; 
Cambridge. 

Utopia, 199. 

Utrecht, treaty of, 316, 322, 333, 336. 

Vagrancy, 262 note. 

Valera, Eamon de, 410. 

Vane, Sir Harry, 265. 

Vassals, 69 ; services of, 70, 73 ; sub- 
vassals, 92 ; in Magna Carta, 112. 
See Feudalism,. 

Venezuela, 393. 

Venice, and trade, 187. 

Verdun, 416 ; 421 ; 423. 

Versailles, Treaty of, 432 ; 433. 

Veto, used for last time by Anne, 
313. 



INDEX. 



505 



The references are to sections. 



Victoria, Queen, portrait of, 368 ; 
accession of, 369 ; influence of, 369 ; 
ministries of, 370 ; and Trent 
affair, 379 ; Empress of India, 383 ; 
death of, 399. 

Victorian Era, 400. 

Vienna, Congress of, 358. 

Vikings, 28, 54, 63, 66. 

Vill, Villein, Villeinage, Anglo-Saxon, 
12, 18, 45, 46 ; in 1066, 63 ; manors, 
69 note ; under William I, 72 ; in 
Domesday Book, 74 ; and feudal- 
ism, 77, 87 ; and Assize of Claren- 
don, 99; in Magna Carta, 112; 
and manorial system, 151, 152, 
153 ; and Langland, 156 ; in four- 
teenth century, 159, 160, 164 • and 
enclosures, 184, 185 ; decay of, 
231. 

Villeneuve, 353. 

Villiers. See Buckingham, Duke of. 

Virginia, settlements in, 252, 287 ; and 
Commonwealth, 276, 277. 

Von Tromp, Admiral, 277. 

Vortigern, summons Hengist and 
Horsa, 14. 

Wagram, 357. 

Wakefield, battle of, 176. 

Wales, geographical position of, 2 ; 
climate of, 5 ; surface of, 6 ; min- 
eral ore, 6 note ; Britons in, 8, 16 ; 
under Mercia, 26 ; becoming Eng- 
lish, 38 ; invaded by Eadgar, 39 ; 
and Cnut, 58 ; and Harold, 61 ; and 
John, 109; and Edward I, 134, 
136 ; and Richard II, 163 ; and 
Henry IV, 166; and Henry VIII, 
209 ; rebellions in, 273 ; in Union, 
317. 

Wallace, William, 141. 

Wallingford, treaty of, 86. 

Walpole, Robert, ministry of, 320, 
321 ; Tory opposition to, 322 ; im- 
portance of, 323 ; influence of, 
326; religious revival in time of, 
334. 

Walsingham, 236, 237. 

Walter, Archbishop Hubert, 109. 

Wandering of the Nations, 10, 28. 

War of i8i2, 356. 



War, The Great, condition of British 
Empire, on the eve of, 413 ; causes 
of, 414; declaration of, 415; con- 
quest of Belgium, 416 ; the need of 
a new army, 417 ; the naval su- 
premacy, 418 ; the Dardanelles 
Expedition, 419 ; losses of the year 
1915, 420 ; Verdun, 421 ; Jutland; 
422; Allied drives in 1916, 423; 
German submarine policy, 424, 
426 ; complete list of Allied powers 
and neutral nations, 424 note ; the 
Russian Revolution, 425 ; Allied 
victories, 1917, 427; in the east, 
428; the Great Drives of 1918, 
429 ; counter-offensive, 430 ; col- 
lapse of the Central Powers, 43 1 ; 
Treaty of Versailles, 432; effect 
upon the British Empire, 433, 
434. 

War of Austrian Succession. See 
Austrian Succession, War of. 

War of Spanish Succession. See 
Spanish Succession, War of. 

War Office, the, 439. 

Warbeck, Perkin, 191. 

Wars of the Roses. See Roses, 
Wars of. 

Warwick, Earl of, 175-177. 

Warwick (John Dudley), Earl of, 
214-216. 

Washington, George, 327, 340, 341. 

Waterloo, battle of, 358. 

Wellington (Arthur Wellesley), Duke 
of, 357-358, 365, 376. 

Wells, cathedral of, 122. 

Wentworth, Sir Thomas. See Straf- 
ford. 

Wergeld, 46, 49, 77. 

Wessex, Christianity in, 20 ; results 
of, 26-40 ; Danes in, 29, 46 ; resist- 
ance of, 31 ; Alfred, kir g of, 32-37 ; 
expansion of, 38 ; yields to Danes, 
54 ; under Cnut, 56 ; Godwine, 60 ; 
Harold, 61-62, 67. 

West Indies, 235, 237 ; Penn in, 279 ; 
transportation to, 296 ; French and 
English in, 304 ; War of Spanish 
Succession, 315, 316 ; Britain re- 
tains islands in, 333 ; French in, 
341, 352, 353 ; mismanagement in, 



506 



INDEX. 



The references are to sections. 



343 ; demand attention, 378 ; col- 
onies in, 398. 

Westminster Abbey, 71, 190. 

Westminster catechism, 272. 

Westminster, Statutes of, 131. 

Westmoreland, 6, 206. 

Whigs, origin of name, 291 ; under 
James II, 295, 296; William III, 
309; Anne, 316; George I, 319- 
320; George III, 331, 337, 339; 
and American War, 341, 344 ; Wil- 
liam IV, 365, 367 ; Victoria, 369 ; 
become Liberals, 370', 374. 

Whitby, Synod of, 23. 

Whitehall, 273, 300. 

Whitgift, Archbishop, 241, 242. 

Wiclif, John, 157, 161, 167. 

Wight, Isle of, 2, 273. 

Wilfrid, Roman priest, 23. 

Wilkes, John, 335. 

William I (the Conqueror), 65, 66; 
battle of Hastings, 67 ; completes 
conquest of England, 68 ; govern- 
ment of, 70-77 ; succession of, 78 ; 
army of, 92 ; courts of, 95, 131. 

William II, 78, 81. 

William III (of Orange), marries 
Mary, 277 ; succession, 291 ; revo- 
lution of, 1688, 299 ; comes to Eng- 
land, 300 ; becomes king, 300 
character of, 305 ; in Scotland, 306 
in Ireland, 307 ; and France, 308 
government of, 309 ; taxes under, 
310 ; death of, 313. 



William IV, accession, 365 ; attitude 
to reform, 366 ; death of, 369. 

William the Lion, of Scotland, 98, 
104. 

Wilson, Woodrow, 428 ; 432. 

Winchester, conquered by Saxons, 
15 ; by Danes, 33 ; monks at, 36 ; 
origin, 47 ; and William I, 71 ; 
Statute of, 131, 149. 

Witan (wise-men), 17; increase in 
power, 41, 42, 43, 44; choose Ed- 
ward king, 59 ; Harold, 61 ; Wil- 
liam I, 68 ; becomes Great Council, 
71. 

Wolfe, in Canada, 331. 

Wolsey, Cardinal Thomas, 193, 200- 
202, 213, 226. 

Yeomen, 149, 164, 174, 176, 196, 269. 

York, House of, 163 note, 173, 174; 
and Lancastrians, 75 ; claims 
crown, 176 ; rules, 178-187. 

York, Paulinus in, 20, 22 ; monastery 
at, 25 ; archbishopric of, 65, 68 ; 
subordinate to Canterbury, 75 ; and 
Becket, 96 ; and Edward I, .141 ; 
minister of, 146 ; revolts, 206 ; 
Scots in, 263 ; represented in par- 
liament, 364 note. 

Yorktown, surrender of, 341. 

" Young Ireland," 373. 

Ypres, battle of, 420 ; 427 ; 429. 

Zwingli, 223. 



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